will past copper treatments hurt - used tank...

[salty420]

ok so im pretty much committed to upgrading my tank now and am eyeballing a used 75 gallon acrylic but am also considering evicting my freshies and converting my 75 fw tank to sw. however the tanks been used for years now and has had several medications added to it's waters over time. would any of this leech into the water from the silicon or anything?

 

[clown-lover]

I have no experience with this personally and can only tell you what I have read. But there was a forum where I was reading where people had converted old hospital tanks into coral etc tanks and have had no problems.

I don't think that it is a problem that Copper will be absorbed by glass or even acrylic but things like silicone could probably absorb some. Do I think that it would leach enough back into a tank to cause issues no..

But again like I said I haven't personally tried this but if you want to check I'd evict your FW fish like you said, fill it up with saltwater and let it sit for several weeks with just water and filtration in it and then use a saltwater copper test kit to see if there are any results. But I would also make sure that I'd use RO water and test everything before I put it into the tank (out of the RO unit, after I added salt etc) to make sure I had no readings elsewhere while doing something like this...

 

[Fishieness]

copper will be absorbed by the silicone and will be leached back out into the tank.

 

[SHK_ATK]

If you are that worried about possible contamination I would def. re-seal, and scrub the heck out of the tank, I have a 30G that I bought off a fellow reefer and was planning on making it another sw tank, but I housed rats and even if I were to scrub it I still woulndt use it for aquatic life (their pee is really acidic)

 

[sapgranth25]

there's a product you can buy by seachem called CupriSorb
http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/CupriSorb.html that absorbs all copper within a tank from sand, rock, glass, silicone in a few days of use its a bag of media you put in a filter let it run & then all copper is absorbed in to it....

BUT

if the silicone is years old then regardless of copper i`d re-seal it as you don`t want a seal burst with 75gallons of water plus stock be a real wast of money....

 

[Reefscape]

CupriSorb is a pretty good product for the removal of copper..Also use absorbtion media's like poly filters to remove the copper from the system..With the poly filters, they turn bluey grey when absorbed...both are pretty effective methods...

Hope that helps..

This has also kinda been discussed here..

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138027&highlight=CupriSorb&page=4

Niko

 

[salty420]

ok well sounds like this is not an option then as i'd be looking to change over as quickly as possible... how long till you have to re-seal a tank anyway? the 75 is around 10 years old and it's just a perfecto so it's cheap....

 

[Reefscape]

personaly, after 10 years, i would be seriously concidering it..

But, thats just me

Niko

 

[sapgranth25]

most if not all silicone brands only Guarantee for 5-10years on there product so without doubt a re-seal is a must other wise your asking for a tank blow out & an expensive mistake considering silicone is so cheap to buy

yes stripping old silicone & re-sealing a tank is NOT an easy job to do but thats not the question i guess

 

[clown-lover]

CupriSorb is a pretty good product for the removal of copper..Also use absorbtion media's like poly filters to remove the copper from the system..With the poly filters, they turn bluey grey when absorbed...both are pretty effective methods...

Hope that helps..

This has also kinda been discussed here..

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138027&highlight=CupriSorb&page=4

Niko

The nice thing about the Poly Filters though is that they are not "just" going to absorb copper.. They will absorb any treatment or other garbage added/in a tank and can be used in both Fresh or Salt water systems.

I am not sure about the other absorbtion media (maybe you do Niko).. So if you wanted to do that switch you could run the Poly Filter in your tank for a couple of weeks and then when you break it down re-silicon your joints and you should be ready to go.