copper slowly killing corals?

nemofish2217

nemofish2217

New member
The corals in my 65 gallon are starting to go down hill. I have no idea what it could be but it is really bothering me and I want/need to find out and correct the problem.

The problem first started when I noticed my milli's start to really lighten. I had no idea what it could be as everything else looked fine. Well, they have continued to lighten and now it looks like another one of my hard corals is starting to lighten up... I have a GBTA, finger leather, ricordias, a red cap, pink urchin, various blue legged hermits, and some snails. With the exception of two turbos that died a day after getting them, all of these things are still doing fairly well, and the cap is even showing great growth.

Params are as follows: Calc. 440, Alk. 9dkh, Nitrate 0, Nitrite 0, Ammonia 0, Phopshate 0.

I am running phosban passively in a filter bag. I dose 30mL B-Ionic nightly (but I just started this about a week ago). Should I start running carbon? Could the phosban be causing the problem? It has been in there for about two or three weeks. I am really clueless and the only thing that I haven't been able to test for was copper....but I would think all of the snails would have been nuked before the corals, but maybe the corals are more sensitive??? Need some help, thanks
 
Is there any particular reason you are thinking about copper? Unless you have a used tank in which copper based medication was previously used, it seems like it would be unlikely. Are you using RODI water to mix up salt water and to top off? If you are using tap water, the contents of the water are more iffy. Some SPS (and I'm no expert here) will show lighter color at the tips where there is new growth. It can look alarming at first. Your parameters look good, but keep testing because you will probably have to adjust the dosage of B-ionic for your particular tank. And lastly, the carbon can't hurt. The best place for the carbon is in an area of good flow rather than in a filter bag placed in the tank. Some people use a canister filter for this, or a reactor. I use a simple, cheap hang-on-back filter (as could be used for fresh water) with a refillable, disposable filter bag. Very low tech but it works great.
 
took the phosban out... the corals tips were not light but the whole entire coral. The carbon is in a filter bag next to the return pump...I'm pretty sure its getting good flow...

The reason i was thinking copper was because the pump for my euro-reef rs80 has a little spot on the back of it where I saw a little orange spot. I don't think its enough to leech anything into the water, and I think if it was copper the whole lot of inverts would be dead...
 
too much phosban can make corals overly sensitive to light an bleach out, something to look into perhaps
 
Phosban can lighten the corals -- the algae in the corals needs phosphates too, ya know.

So if you remove too much phosphate, the corals will suffer.
 
Personally I would check salinity, even if you are using a refractometer, and run a poly filter pad to detect for copper. JMO
 
run a polyfilter to check for copper, if theres copper in your water polyfilter will turn green i believe, i have heard of phosban lighting up corals so remove it for now....

sana
 
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