Aluminum foil lost in tank

MellowReefer

New member
Somehow a small piece of tin foil from my frozen food got into the food and I didn't notice until I saw my fish try to eat it and then I lost sight of it. I just spent an hour looking for it and it must be stuck between rocks. Should I be worried? I guess it would mean tearing apart my tank to find it. I know aluminum is toxic but would a small piece cause an issue? Would polyfilter absorb it?
 
With that small of a piece, I'd just keep some Polyfilter in the filter system and not worry too much...unless they stick it in the microwave when they're warming their dinner. Then you'd have some problems.
 
Been there, done that. Dropped same thing in my 180 a year ago never to be seen again. No ill affects. I will say every time one of my corals do not look 100% I blame the foil. I use it as a catch all excuse for my occasional poor maintance habits
 
Negligible. I use an aluminum light fixture and aluminum rim on my sump in areas where salt creep is abundant, and have never had any problem. Aluminum isn't highly reactive to salt water. And the tinfoil bits are very, very little aluminum.
 
Lessons learned:

When I’m getting their food, not turning on the light in the kitchen to save electricity (because electric bill is too high because of the tank) is a really dumb move on my part.

Using a flashlight to look in the tank scares the fish big time, never try that again.
 
Yeh, the old "is that a flashlight or a big deepwater angler fishing for dinner" nightmare does gettem goin', I have to admit...
 
My poor fish. Between that and me waving my hand all over the tank to try to flush it out, I think they thought it was the end of times.

Funny, when I was searching RC for "aluminum foil", I came across a thread where a guy had used foil to cover his rocks to try to kill GHA...he had it in there for a few weeks already and then posted to ask if it was a bad idea :uhoh2:
 
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