advice please

[voltron]

Hi,
i´m currently looking for a used sea-aquarium to buy and need some advice regarding copper contamination.
Tomorrow i´ll be looking at a fully equipped 30g tank for a good price (250 euro); the owner told me he didn´t have had copper in it, but he only ran a test once. As i´m fairly new to aquarium stuff i´d like to know whether i can buy some easy-to-use copper test at my LFS, or through what other means i can see whether the tank is free of copper.

thx in advance
volt

 

[Colin]

Hi .....

2 ways, you can either buy a copper testkit from your local fish shop or you could take a sample of tank water into them... I'd also test your tap water to see what it sits at too

 

[cthulhu77]

Once you get the tank set up and running, see if your snails or inverts hug the top of the tank, or if the corals (any?) start to turn grey at the edges...this means metal poisoning!
If the person you are buying the tank from is honest, you should have nothing to worry about, but I agree with Colin, test your water too!!
Good luck,
Greg

 

[voltron]

Thx for the advice!
I´ll go and buy a testkit then. If i´m lucky, i´ll be the proud owner of my first seawater aquarium next week 8)
YAY

 

[Colin]

Sounds good... sometimes its a lot easier to just buy your own kits

 

[voltron]

Seems i´m quite lucky
The tank really looked good and i´ll transfer it tonight to my place. Sadly i wasn´t able to get a testing kit in time but the previous owner assured me he never used copper based substances (or any other metal) in it so i hope i´m safe.

Although i´m a total novice it seems a pretty good deal to me: The tank was bought in december at my lfs, it is equipped with a skimmer, a filter and a surge pump(don´t know the right word for it) and already houses 3kg of live-stone, 2 funky looking crabs(?), a sea star, a hermit crab, a coral, some other weird plant(?), one bottom feeding fish and a pair of clown fish (supposedly male and female). Plus he gives me all kind of extra stuff, basically it´s an up and running 6 months old seawater tank .

The whole setup costs me 250 Euro (that should be ca. 300 USD). The reason he gives it up is because he likes to get a bigger (100g) tank. Comparing with prices on ebay or store prices that´s really really cheap i guess.

I´m a bit shocked on pricing though - the testing stuff for copper, ph, ammonium, nitrate and nitrit will cost me nearly 50 USD! And one kilo of live stone sells for 20$! As i´m a student and don´t earn that much, i guess that tank means weeks of pasta
I´m totally excited though and hope i won´t be having too much trouble to convert this tank into a decent Octo-Tank 8)

But I fear i´ll need lots of advice and i´ll be probably bugging you a bit the next weeks

Today i asked my lfs on octos and it seems they´re no too keen on the subject - in three weeks there might one arriving but the guy doesn´t have the slightest clue about what species ("..uhh..i think it will be a brown one from indonesia...they don´t grow very big..")

Maybe one of you guys knows how to get a bimac in germany?

Sorry for the long post but i´m too happy and excited to hold back


Volt

 

[cthulhu77]

Way cool V. !!! You managed to get a great deal !!
I can sympathize with the pasta ordeal...I lived on Top Ramen for all 5 years of college (is that an admission that I perhaps took too long? )
Anything you need to know, just ask...and the new checklist is awesome too, hit that and query Colin and Carol with questions (our resident gurus)
Good luck, and if you get a chance, send in some pics!
Greg