I'm thinking about putting some shrimp or crabs into my tank. Ignoring the air issue with crabs, I'm still concerned about the compatibility of fish and inverts in terms of water conditions. As I understand it, salt and copper are both commonly used in fish medications and highly toxic to inverts.
Salt doesn't worry me too much. I have a QT available, and I can simply make sure that the inverts stay in a salt free tank until I've reduced the salt to negligible levels in the other tank.
Copper likes to stick around however. After reading the removing copper thread, it sounds like you -can- get rid of most of the copper but you'll still be taking a bit of a risk by putting an invert into a tank that has ever had copper used in it.
What I was wondering is it possible to completely avoid the use of copper based medications? If so, presumably I can just stick to the copper free medications and avoid the problems that come with the use of copper.
I don't know if I want to take on the risk of using copper in a tank that will have inverts put into it, even if I do dose with Coppersafe or something else. On the other hand, I had never even realized you could put shrimp or crabs into an aquarium until a month or two ago when I started an aquarium after 15 years of not having one. I'm absolutely enamoured with the idea of keeping them. Unfortunately (perhaps quite reasonably would be a better choice of words) my fiancee doesn't want another aquarium in our apartment, so an invert-centric tank isn't a possibility.
Salt doesn't worry me too much. I have a QT available, and I can simply make sure that the inverts stay in a salt free tank until I've reduced the salt to negligible levels in the other tank.
Copper likes to stick around however. After reading the removing copper thread, it sounds like you -can- get rid of most of the copper but you'll still be taking a bit of a risk by putting an invert into a tank that has ever had copper used in it.
What I was wondering is it possible to completely avoid the use of copper based medications? If so, presumably I can just stick to the copper free medications and avoid the problems that come with the use of copper.
I don't know if I want to take on the risk of using copper in a tank that will have inverts put into it, even if I do dose with Coppersafe or something else. On the other hand, I had never even realized you could put shrimp or crabs into an aquarium until a month or two ago when I started an aquarium after 15 years of not having one. I'm absolutely enamoured with the idea of keeping them. Unfortunately (perhaps quite reasonably would be a better choice of words) my fiancee doesn't want another aquarium in our apartment, so an invert-centric tank isn't a possibility.