Copper wire accident!

G

goulding.c

Member
Hello fellow reefers, I am currently remodeling my kitchen and my old tank is out. All fish and corals moved to sump in basement until construction is complete. The last 6 weeks have been fine. Monday night I noticed a real turn on corals! slime and shedding skin on some! I immediately noticed a short cut off piece of 12 gauge copper wire 3 inches long sitting on top of one of corals! The electrician has been out of the house for a week. So I think the copper wire was in there a week. Now I am panicked because in 4 hours the family was leaving for vacation for 4 days! I called a local guy I know that his company is fish tanks. He said to mix a batch of water he would come next day and do water changes (Monday night midnight) Well yesterday he told me he was to busy and never came!! I got home last night at 1 am ,to find my oldest yellow tangs 20 years! Dead, and some pretty ugly looking corals. I immediately did the 55 gallon water change. The system is a 75 gallon refugium, dumping into a rubbermade horse water tub holding maybe another 75 gallons. The biggest fish was dead at least 2 days, the other maybe a day, pretty stinky. Please advise! Any help would be greatly appreciated! The corals are candy corals, hammerheads, mushrooms , and one giant toadstool?? The giant one looks pretty bad, shrunk to a 1/4 its normal size. I'll be honest, my tank has been so good, I have no test kits, and have not bought anything for it in 10 years. Just do water changes and watch it all grow like crazy. Now I am heart broken as I await my new rimless 180, to move these guys into.

Thank You guys for all your help!
 
Macro algae will absorb copper as a trace mineral.

IMO, more important than water change is aggressive circulation. Maybe get a cannister or HOB to provide extra circulation. You need oxygen in the tank. Your bacteria populations will be decimated releasing nutrients and consuming oxygen as they decompose. Perhapes use a nitrate reducing and a phosphate reducing resin.

Sorry for this loss. It is a hard pill.
 
Thank You! I do have 2 impeller pumps really circulating water, along with a big new canister filter with carbon, that pulls from sump and feeds the refugium which dumps to sump through 1" pvc.

When I did the water change, my salinity was low 1.020. I put more salt in and now its about 1.30 1.32. Do you think that's ok?

Another question, if my system is now contaminated with copper. Should I start from scratch when new tank arrives??? :(
 
Polyfilter pads will absorb copper & turn blue.
I would run a few.
To be safe You will be better off starting new with the upgrade.
 
Polyfilter was my thought as well. Just keep using it until it doesn't turn blue and keep doing water changes.

I would frag the corals that are still ok and add to my new tank but I wouldn't reuse the rock or sand or other things since it may have absorbed copper and can slowly release it back into the new tank.

That really sucks though! :(
 
Thanks everyone, can you elaborate on poly filter??? Is that like a 12" hanging reactor filter, like on the bottom of our ro units?? I have one that has 2 filters, I use both for gfo, they are not hooked up now that my system is broke down, but I can hook them back up.

Luckily when we broke down the old tank, we set out 4 giant pieces of rock to sit outside and die off. We figure the system would be much more open water with just center rock pile. New tank is 2 sided. So most old rick went to sump, now I am thinking I set up new tank wit those big clean pieces, and pitch the old rock in sump. and whatever corals look good at the time I use them????

I am 8 weeks away from new tank arrival and finishing the remodel.

Thank You!!!
 
well today after the big water change and removal of dead fish Friday night, corals still look terrible even under high light. The big one (Toadstool) is about 1/4 its normal size. My wife even said the basement smelled funny today, I couldn't disagree, :(

I have another batch of 55 gallons of ro water I just added salt to. I was going to do another big change tomorrow, and hopefully buy test kits since stores where closed today.

All my hammer corals are pulled in, same with candy corals, brown mushrooms are half open. :(

What a bummer! I have had these fish and corals for 15 years watching them grow!

As usual any advice is appreciated no matter how hard to hear. My worst fear is the refugium and everything is contaminated and must go. I remember how ling it took before my whole system settled in and was pretty much free running.

Thank You
 
Do the water change and get that polyfilter or cuprisorb product..
Then just wait..

No need to go crazy..no need to break the tank down..
 
Just to update everyone. Today I took a water sample to lfs. Luckily my water change eliminated the copper, however rushing in a giant water change, I missed my salinity target! Up to 1.036!

Now my alkalinity is off the chart, ph is 8.4, mag is extremely high. the ammonia test is inconclusive, it turned milky????

So I am adding ro water to reduce salinity. An I bought a barrage of new test kits.

Any advice always appreciated!
 
I don't think for a second that a piece of metallic copper killed your tang. I doubt it was the culprit affecting your corals as well.
 
alemone

you might be right. Once I broke the tank down and moved everything to the sump, it was fine for about 8-10 weeks now while under construction. I did my regular water changes. It was right before we were leaving for vacation when I noticed the crash. when I turned off the pumps so I could see through the surface, I noticed the 2 pieces of copper wire laying ontop of 2 corals. The electrician had not been onsite for 10-14 days. So that's how long the exposure was. I mixed salt into my 55 gallon can of ro water, and then left for the airport 3 hours later, under the assumption my local fish guy was coming first thing in morning to do the water change and check water levels. Well he never came and I showed up to the corals really looking bad and sliming and dead fish. My mistake was I added my usual salt to the 55 gallon can forgetting that I did it before I left :(

I was panicked, very exhausted getting home at 2 am. I now have the salinity back in check and will do more testing today.
 
goulding.c said:
alemone

you might be right. Once I broke the tank down and moved everything to the sump, it was fine for about 8-10 weeks now while under construction. I did my regular water changes. It was right before we were leaving for vacation when I noticed the crash. when I turned off the pumps so I could see through the surface, I noticed the 2 pieces of copper wire laying ontop of 2 corals. The electrician had not been onsite for 10-14 days. So that's how long the exposure was. I mixed salt into my 55 gallon can of ro water, and then left for the airport 3 hours later, under the assumption my local fish guy was coming first thing in morning to do the water change and check water levels. Well he never came and I showed up to the corals really looking bad and sliming and dead fish. My mistake was I added my usual salt to the 55 gallon can forgetting that I did it before I left :(

I was panicked, very exhausted getting home at 2 am. I now have the salinity back in check and will do more testing today.
Click to expand...

Bad timing, unfortunately. Shame on your local fish guy if he accepted the job and never showed up.Perhaps you kept your stock in the (small) sump for too long. Hope things stabilize.
 
Stop doing water changes when you don't have the salinity on point. You are causing dangerous fluctuations of salinity that are swinging wildly enough to cause more harm then whatever the initial issue was, copper or otherwise.

Going from 1.020 to 1.031 in a single day due to one water change is bad, and you did it again later to 1.036.

I don't disagree with large water changes but match up the salinity before you add it in!!

You need to /gradually/ bring your salinity down to something more reasonable. Fish can survive a higher or lower salinity if they are adjusted to it, but its the swings that are going to do more harm then good.
 
As a business owner myself, yes, that is a terrible thing to not show up. Even if he said he couldn't make it, I could have had someone else come.

The sump is a giant rubbermade horse water tub, my guess is 80-100 gallons at least. The fuge is a 75 gallon glass tank that feeds into it.

Thanks
 
No need to go crazy..no need to break the tank down..
Click to expand...
Agreed. I would up with copper in some water change water back in college, killed off almost the whole tank while I was in class. I came home to death and dying 8'ish hours after the change with contaminated water.

I pulled out the surviving fish and corals and tossed them in a bare holding tank for a week or two, then started slowly introducing the more hardy species to the main tank after a lot of water changes and rest time. I didn't lose anything from that point forward and still use the same rock in my larger, more successful systems.
At this point, you just address the die off, get the water stable and change it in larger and more frequent intervals. Copper only affects inverts, so your fish are safe once the water is clean and stable.
 
Copper is virtually insoluble in water. A piece of metallic copper in alkaline tank water without electrolysis for a few days will never hurt a fish, "very unlikely" to hurt the corals in the whole 100+gallon system. I would grade it as "unlikely" to reach toxic levels even for invertebrates.
 
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