• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

On Used Tanks and Copper

Alizerin

Cuttlefish
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
19
I'm probably going to go this route. However, I've read over and over again that we want to be leery of a used tank that was once treated with copper containing Ingredients
I'm wondering if there's away to completely *clean* it.

I mean, used tanks could be used three times over and have had god-knows-what in it.:cyclops:

While I'm not real interested in taking short cuts that will ultimatly hurt my octopus. I do wonder- particularly because I will keep the tank properly filtered and maintained for the three months as suggested. - Would there really be any copper left after that? - If so, man, have I underestimated that little Mineral!
 
If you remove all the silicone seals and reseal it, and run a polyfilter on it for a while it would probably be safe. Resealing a tank is a pain in the butt though.
 
I haven't found much detailed information, but in some of the ceph care documents, it was mentioned that the copper medication that is used on freshwater fish gets in the silicone sealant and leaches out over time. I've been trying to find out what the mechanism is that causes copper to lead to such severe problems in cephs, as it seems strange, since they use copper as the oxygen carrier in their blood the way we use iron, so I would have guessed that it would be an important nutritional supplement...

Anyway, the common wisdom is that the only way to be safe would be to remove all the silicone and re-seal the tank, which, of course, leads to a high risk of leaks. There may be other ways to clean it, but we don't know what they are. I believe that some copper test kits are sensitive enough to tell if it will be a problem, but I don't know the details. I'd actually very much like to know what the symptoms are that distinguish copper toxicity from other octo health problems, but I don't know that either... I think we mention it often enough that most people know to avoid it, so we haven't had any cases that were clearly copper-related in several years.
 
Resealing a tank sounds like a harsh project. While looking around, I could get a 50gal at a reasonable price. Particularly because I'll have to play inventer with the hood anyway. It's the 1,274,5683 Other things I have to buy that I guess I need to worry about!
 
Does anyone know if acrylic retains copper supplements? Two of my Merc tanks are used acrylics. One was probably many things and never before salt while the other only had one owner that used it (we bought it from the second owner who decided it wouldn't look good in their bedroom after they bought it) and I know it was originally salt but have no way to know what was kept in it or how it might have been treated. Neither tank has had a problem.
 
copper symptoms? convulsions then death. We bought some in tank lights that were not supposed to have any copper fittings, for the tank next to the octopus tank, they are however interconnected and we lost our octopus (this was many years ago just after I started work in the aquarium)......devastating!

Don't know about acrylic retention.

J
 
dont know about acylic either but i also say, 'why take the risk?'

I have had 2 mystery deaths in a 2nd hand tank, the last owner assured me that no treatments had been used but I am not so sure???
 

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