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Live sand from a tank from my LFS copper!!!!
- Thread starter cenzo
- Start date
If the tank had copper in it, that sand will have it in it. Depends on what type of tank your going to do then. Reef- corals are copper-intolerant, won't survive well. Fish only- you'd want as little copper in it as possible. Big water changes would be necessary to do this. Find out if the sand had been exposed to copper ever in your LFS's tanks. (BTW, fish only with an anemone is the same as a reef basically, anemone's HATE copper).
Dont trust the LFS to do a proper test-they'll probably do one that will indicate only treatment levels of copper. In actuality, you probably won't detect it in the water (unless you have a highly sensitive test). It's present in the sand itself (like a contaminent in soil). That doesn't make it any less lethal to corals though. The sand may be entirely safe (inverts don't tend to take well to copper either, so if live worms are present, I believe that would be a good sign), just check to see if they ever used copper with that sand present, or mixed that sand with sand from prior that had copper in it.
As I posted earlier, I dont believe you can get a test kit that will do this. Your test kit is built to test the water, not the sand. Also, the traces of copper in the water leached by the sand would probably be too low to detect by the test kit. This DOES NOT make it safe. If your willing to spend hundreds on lighting, equipment, and corals (they're not to cheap), dont go cheap on the sand and take the risk, IMHO. It's ultimately up to you, but you've been warned.
You know I would think that you would have mentioned that you were setting up a reef tank to your LFS when you purchased the LS and LR. I am no expert but from all that I have heard copper would ultimately kill off most corals. I would investigate more into the facts re: copper in a reef tank. I think that if you invested some $ in LS and LR the LFS should do right. If it turns out that even at very low levels the copper would kill off any investment I say you have a small claims case here hopefully some restitution .
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Honda VT series
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Honda VT series
If your LFS treat their fish with copper in their system, and this is where the samd and the LR are from, I would not buy it. If you bought some of the rock from there, return it.
Once contaminated, the sand and rock will always have coper and will release it when pH drop like at night. I had system contaminated with coper from a RIO pump disaster before. The problem I notice is that the diversity is much less and the tank never did well. I dumped the whole thing and started over with my system.
You have a new tank, I would return the rock, dump or return the sand and start over. If the contamination is very light, you may be able to do OK. How much contamination is light, how much is bad contamination? I don't think we know, so I would just get rid of the rock and sand. Use all new water also.
Good luck
Minh Nguyen
Once contaminated, the sand and rock will always have coper and will release it when pH drop like at night. I had system contaminated with coper from a RIO pump disaster before. The problem I notice is that the diversity is much less and the tank never did well. I dumped the whole thing and started over with my system.
You have a new tank, I would return the rock, dump or return the sand and start over. If the contamination is very light, you may be able to do OK. How much contamination is light, how much is bad contamination? I don't think we know, so I would just get rid of the rock and sand. Use all new water also.
Good luck
Minh Nguyen
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