Buying Fish from Retailers that use Copper

[Chad]

I am just curious if anyone has any thoughts on this. Its my understanding that once copper has entered the tank it is near impossible to get rid of. That being said we all know how harmful it is to a reef system and would never knowingly put it into our tanks. However with some retailers using copper in their "fish only" tank, is it enough to purchase these and keep them in a quarantine tank for a week or so, or are you gonna have copper leech out from the fish for endless months? Possibly causing harm to your reef system?

I am not sure on this, was just thinking about it.

Chad

[Buccaneer]

Was talking to Danny @ Wai's and he said that there is no reason you cant use a tank for a reef after it has had copper in it ... assuming you empty all the water and rinse it out ... in fact if you run carbon for a couple days it will remove the copper also ( no sand or rock tho as they can retain the copper ) the copper cannot stick to the glass or silicone according to him.

Cheers

[Son Of Skyline]

J&L uses copper in their fish tanks. I've never quarantined a fish but I've been careful to not add any of the bag water to my system. Most of my fish have come from J&L and I haven't had any problems yet.

[Buccaneer]

Upon further research at RC in the reef chem forum it seems that it would be prudent to do a acid wash ( vinegar / muratic acid ) to be sure as far as tanks and parts go ... a little off topic from your original question ...
nowhere did I find anything regarding absorbtion of copper by the fish themselves ( not to say it does not happen ) ... I suspect that the amounts would be minute at best and within tolerance levels for the inverts in the tank if it did indeed happen ... there would be alot of reef tanks crashing if this were true dont you think ?

Cheers

[Chad]

I guess what I am thinking is that eventualy as your tank ages, animals die, copper is released etc it slowly builds up to where it could be fatal :question: I personaly don't know how much or if there is any copper traces inside of the fish. This is what I am trying to find out.

[Aquattro]

Chad, I have never heard of that being a problem.