Used Aquarium has blue tinted silicone

nkd5024

New member
I bought a used aquarium at the frag swap on Saturday and went to start cleaning it out today and I noticed that all the silicone is tinted a light blue color. I emailed the seller to ask if it had been used with any copper treatment in the past, but haven't heard back as of yet.

So I know that copper treatments can get into the silicone of an aquarium and leach out enough to kill corals, but I have never heard of it actually turning the silicone blue before. Has anybody heard of this before?

I was planning on using this tank as a frag tank which would be connected to my main tank, so I would really like to know whether its safe or not.

Thanks in advanced,
Nick D.
 
Malachite green, ich medicine, will turn silicone blue.

I know you can't use it in a tank with coral, but i do not know if it will leach out of silicone or not at a later date.

Hopefully someone will be by soon to tell you for sure.

Good luck!
 
Methylene Blue, a fungal medication, sorta like Malachite Green Lite, is not copper based and will also turn silicone blue.
 
Alright, so no matter what the exact medication is, its safe to assume that its too risky to use the tank for a frag tank.

So... anyone want a 40 breeder for a freshwater tank? I have no use for it.

The guy I bought the tank from also sold a bunch of other tanks so I hope other people don't miss this and lose any livestock.

Nick D.
 
Couldn't you razor out the old silicone and replace it with new? Certainly it may have leeched into the gaps, but you are sealing over that with straight silicone.
 
I'm sure you could re-silicone the tank, but I have a few others lying around that I can use for a frag tank. I just planned on using the 40 breeder cause I like how shallow it is and I got it for a steal. And I may just be paranoid but even after re-siliconing it i'd still worry for a while and I put to much money into my system to take any risks, haha.

PaStreetGlide, i'm glad you saw this and we didn't have to read a possible tank crash thread!

I was told that all the tanks came from a LFS that closed but for some reason didn't think to ask about possible copper dosing until I got home, as I know almost all LFS's use copper in their fish tanks. :(

Nick D.
 
I agree Nick! I still need to check my tanks silicone color but Im sure its the same. Text me about that metor shower frag 570-406-8456
 
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