copper in B-Ionic?

[radge69]

I was under the impression that any copper is very bad news for a reef tank, but if you look on a bottle of B-Ionic it contains copper. Is there a certain copper that doesn't hurt invertabrates and such?

 

[blondenaso1]

Yes, Cu is bad for reef systems and B-ionic does contain copper in it, but I am sure that they are in trace amounts. I think everyone takes Cu a little to seriously. Any one of those metals on the back on the B-ionic part 2 bottle could be toxic at high concentrations, especially at the concentration at which we use to treat fish with parasites. You have to realize that transition metals such as copper are required for almost all biosynthetic processes in an organism. The control of electrons is regulated by these metals and that is why they are included in B-"ionic" to control the ionic balence in the system. Don't worry too much about it. It's there for a reason.

 

[radge69]

That's the answer I was looking for. I discovered this a few weeks ago and have been thinking about it since. I couldn't really come up with a reason as to why it would be in there. I know plenty of people that use it with no ill effects, so I haven't stopped using it. Just wanted to see if someone could come up with a reason as to why it was in there. Thanks for the reply.