Ridding Coral skeletons of copper

[shamukaiser]

About 10 years ago I had a fish only tank that was treated with copper. There were several pieces of dead coral in that tank.

Do they still have copper in them?
Can I soak the skeletons in something to get rid of any traces?

I would like to use the pieces in my reef tank as base.

thanks....

Shamu

 

[NaH2O]

*moved to the chemistry forum for Boomer's attention.

Welcome to Reef Frontiers!!

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Once corals or rock has soaked in copper, pretty much impossible to fully remove. It will slowly leach out. Fine for FOWLERS, but not good for corals nor inverts. There are resin bags and other absorbants for the water, but no real solvents.

 

[Sascha D]

Doesn't carbon remove copper? I remember we used to have to remove the carbon to treat the goldfish with copper back in the day at the shop.

 

[shamukaiser]

thanks for the replies.... looks like I will try to sell them to a fish only hobbiest......

shamu

 

[Boomer]

Carbon will remove copper from the water but not the coral. With that said it is still not a good idea to use such coral in a reef tank. There use to be a product by SeaChem labs long ago that, would remove the copper from corals or filter media but it was discontinued long ago. It was called Anti-Cooper. Their copper Cupramine will also remove copper from rock and corals to a degree. It is the reason behind not using this product in a tank that has used other coppers before with a substrate or LR tank, as copper levels will go through the roof. I have not run any tests to see what would happen if one soaked coral or live rock in Cupramine to see what would happen.

 

[Sascha D]

Thanks for the input I was wondering about that.

 

[jhentr]

Might not be worth the risk but you can try running it thru Seachem's Cuprisorb or a Polyfilter. They'll let you know if there's copper being absorb by changing colors. I have recently treated a QT that had 20 lbs of rocks in it with Cupramine (Cupramines seems less likely to soak into the calcareous pores of the rocks . I later ran a Polyfilter pad on it and came up w/ no copper. I then used the 20 lbs of rocks in my mixed reef tank without any issues yet to my Cleaner Shrimp, Coral Banded Shrimps and various mixes of softies/LPS/SPS. Knock on wood and good luck.