Will copper kill beneficial bacteria?

[Miami Reef]

I’m setting up a quarantine tank and I want to establish bacteria in it and keep it running so I can treat fish with copper and prevent any deaths from ammonia.

I’m thinking of buying a 20 gallon tank. And quarantine them that way. Will tanks cycle with copper?

 

[TheDragonsReef]

It doesnt kill all the bacteria but definitely reduces their populations enough to where you have to monitor ammonia anytime you dose copper. If the tank isnt already cycled it is not likely to cycle during copper useage.

 

[ReefBeta]

Tank can be cycle with copper.

 

[threebuoys]

Not in my experience. I have a 20 gallon qt with a canister filter loaded with poret foam. The foam does not absorb copper nor do I have any rock in the QT. So, all of the bacteria needed to process ammonia is housed in the foam. I took aged foam from my DT to initialize the canister for the OT.

 

[slojim]

my experience is that it kills of a lot of it, but not all. Next time, I'm going to run a seeded sponge filter in a 5g bucket that I can let ammonia spike in just to over-populate, then put it in QT.
I use a 20g tank - I bought a 20T, not a 20L, and I fill it to 10g. I could always fill higher for a large fish, but this gives jumping room without impact to the lid - which was a problem with 2 previous wrasses.