Copper in Main Tank from Food or ?

[jboi]

I have a 40 breeder tank with live rock and CaribSea live sand. It has been up and running for 5 months now. I was checking my water parameters today and thought I should check copper which I normally don't do. I was very surprised to find two readings today. Using Hanna Checker Copper HR they read 0.22 and 0.25 ppm.

Because I live in an 100 year old apartment building a RO/DI system is not an option. I have been using distilled water from the store, namely Arrowhead and Smart & Final. I checked both bottles today and both read 0 ppm copper.

Reading the "What you need to know about copper" thread I can only conclude the copper is coming from food. I feed my fish Ocean Nutrition Formula Two Flakes, San Francisco Bay Brand Brine Shrimp and Omega One Super Veggie Red seaweed.

Does anyone else have this issue with these foods? Or is the copper coming from the rocks/sand?

I have a peppermint shrimp, a coral banded shrimp, a cleaner shrimp, 3 hermit crabs 2 turbo snails, damselfish, and a yellow tang. All inverts have been happy and thriving.

Should I be worried at this level of copper?

- Jeff

[bertoni]

I am not sure what is happening. I would expect that level of copper to cause problems for invertebrates. A PolyFilter will turn blue in the presence of copper. I might add one to double-check the test result. I am not sure what, if anything, might interfere with a copper test to explain the 0 ppm on distilled water. As long as the animals are okay, I guess I wouldn't worry much, although I would try a PolyFilter.

[jjencek]

I had the same problem. I did a ICP test and there was no copper in the tank.

It was the Hanna test false positive. I tried to work with Hanna, but they didn't seem to care. I did not feel like spending the money or the reagents to figure it out.

What else are you adding to the water? By any chance, are you using Bacto-Balance product? At that time I thought it might be the one, but never finished the testing.

[jboi]

I have not added anything to the tank, except for liquid calcium and magnesium doses from BRS. I went ahead and ordered polyfilter and will throw that in the HOB filter I got a couple of days ago. I already have the carbon running in the media bag.

The one thing that occurred to me last night is perhaps the two Home Depot 5 gallon buckets I used for hospital tank. After I tore it down I rinsed the buckets out really good with water and took a wet towel and wiped it out. Both buckets sat out and air dried for several days. But, what I read on another forum by rinsing and drying it should be OK.

[Tcook]

Can you take a water sample to the LFS for testing?

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[jboi]

Yeah, I will plan on doing that once the stores open after this virus.

A side note: I discovered another hitchhiker this morning. I have a stomatella snail when I saw it blowing "smoke". Fascinating! In addition to the colony of bristle worms I wonder what other creatures I will find next.

[Tcook]

Only because I see more and more posts about the inaccuracies of those testers. I had one for all of my tests and they never matched up well with Salifert reagent tests that the LFS used.

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[Michael Hoaster]

Did you buy the tank used? If so, the previous owner may have added copper to the tank, and now it is leaching out of the silicone sealant.

[bertoni]

It's unlikely that the silicone sealant can bind enough copper to be an issue. it'd have to be something with more surface area, like live rock, sand, or deposits on the tank walls.