Copper Leaching - Myth or Fact??

[9supratt4]

A lot of people say that when copper is used in a tank, it gets absorbed into Live Rock, sand and the silicone in our tanks and that the tank can never again be used as a reef or with any inverts due to copper then leaching out of the silicone. Is this a myth or is it a fact??

 

[redfishbluefish]

I will emphatically state that copper is not “absorbed” into the glass or silicone of a tank. If you are not absorbed, you can not leach. So the tank may be used again after a good cleaning. The copper just washes away.

All the other stuff, I’ve got a concern. I would be very leery about using rock because of the sponge like characteristics. All that surface area. Although I believe they do sell some copper “exit” product, but I know nothing about it. With sand, again it is surface area. I’d be a little more comfortable reusing sand over rock, because of the greater ease of washing it. But I would wash the living he11 out of it before using it again.

 

[Brando457]

If rock was left out to "Dry" and died, then in essence wouldn't the copper dry up too. Just saying if LR was in a copper treated tank then the LR sat outside of water for a few months and no longer was wet, any bacteria and copper would die or evaporate.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Copper doesn’t evaporate. It is a metal. It has to be washed out; chelated; ionically changed, for it to come out of the rock. Letting rock sit for a long period of time that has been treated with copper is called rock containing copper. No change will occur over time in regard to copper content.

 

[reseter5]

With my many tanks I have had over the years I have had to remove some copper. As far as rocks I used a real lot of water movement at the rocks and through the rocks. And I used cuprisorb. I was able to get the copper down to barely a trace. Even kept anemones on the rock after it was done. Lots of cuprisorb. And lots of water movement and testing. Copper is a metal and will not go away on its own as redfishbluefish has said previously. But u can remove almost all of it. At least I did.