Is Brass Reefsafe?

[Nivar]

Nope, Brass isn't good.

Okay, I will remove the plumbing check valve immediately, what do I do to save my corals?

Ted

 

[Anonymous]

Nope Brass has copper in it. Do large water changes.

 

[Len]

If it wasn't exposed for too long, it won't be a big concern. But yes, a series of large water changes will dilute it to safe levels.

 

[Nivar]

Everything Lived except for 3 snails.

a. I drained 50 Gallons of the Tank water into a Cleaned Rubbermaid Tub.

b. Setup a 30 Gallon Aquarium with new RO/DI Water.

Moved all inverts into (b) with 30 Lbs of Live rock
Moved all fish into (a) with the rest of the live rock.
Drained the entire tank to 3 inches above the sandbed.
Refilled it with new RO/DI water.
Moved all the liverock fish and inverts back into the aquarium.

The entire process lasted 3 days.

I Lost 3 snails in the process, everything is doing fine.

I refer to this entire process as AW1 (Aquarium War 1).

One week post AW1, everthing is doing absolutely wonderfully.

Thank you both so much for the help and advice.
In retrospect, 2 or 3 large water changes would have done the trick and I should have taken that above advice, it would have been MUCH easier.
However, I wanted to get all of the inverts out of the copper-water ASAP and I figured that immediately removing them would be best.

I couldn't help but think of the mathematics behind water changes.
say I have 50 units of copper in the tank. I do 3 40% water changes.

After the First water change I have 30 (50 * .6) units remaining
After the Second I have 18 (30 * .6) units remaining
After the Third I have 10.8 (18 * .6) units remaining

If I do one HUGE water change of 95% I have: 2.5 (50 * .05) units remaining with the added benefit of immediately removing all the inverts to a copper free fresh salt tank.

Where there any problems that I am not seeing with the solution I chose? I'm trying to learn from my mistakes.

Thanks,
Ted

 

[Anonymous]

I feel you did the right procedure, keeping the invert in the freshly made water.

It is more efficient to do large water change than more frequent, small water change. But it is a lot of hassle to do large water change for some of us with large tank, and it also is more of a shock to the inhabitants unless we are very carefully about the pH, temp, etc. of the new water.