Copper in reef tank?

[Kitta]

I found out this morning that my fan dropped in the sump last night and tripped the GFI. So the fan was in the water the whole night. I took the fan out and turned the circuit back on and then realized there are copper wires inside the fan. I quickly put a bag of charcoal in the tank. Would charcoal help to take out copper? Does anyone have experience with this type of accident?

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.
If you take it out quick enough, there should not be enough corrison of the copper to make the copper ion concentration lethal to the inverts.

Charcoal does help, but the best thing is resin-based absorbant when it comes to metal ions. If you concerned, get some of that in addition to the charcoal. Good luck.