Copper in my Tank?

[jackman]

I as a beginner just had my display tank, Now I know better.
When I set the tank up and went thru the whole process everything was fine, then I added a new fish and it had the ICH.
It did not show up till a wk later after being in the display tank.
Then all my fish got it: at the time I had:
2 perc clowns
2 tomato clowns
2 yellow tail damsels
I added a blue tang which had the disease...
I then went to the LFS and they said to use a copper medication to get rid of it, and of course I did....
Well needless to say all the fish are fine and disease free.
But now every time I get a invert. they die, except for crabs they are doing fine and thriving. I have bought turbo snails-died, shrimp-died and now a CC star which has just past the other day. all my parramiters are up to par. I have even done a 50% water change but still the inverts are dieing. So I'm asuming that there is still copper in the tank. I have a 75 gallon tank and I don't want to drain the whole tank and put the fish and Rock in something else.
Does anyone know if there is a chemical that I could buy that will get the copper out of my tank or even check to see if there is still copper in it.. Please help.
Jackman

 

[beth]

Jack, that is bad news. Invertebrates have no tolerance for copper, and copper is easily absorbed by your substrate, live rock, if you have any, and even the silicone seals that hold your tank together. With your current setup, you may not be able to have invertebrates. Do you have LR?? Hopefully not.
Bottom line is that to really make that tank invert-friendly you will have to break it down and start over. Even doing water changes, as I said, will not take care of the problem as substrate will absorb copper as well.
If you want to give it a try, then do large water changes over the course of several mos and apply carbon filtration. Replace the carbon weekly. After a few month use a copper test kit that is compatible with the copper you used to see what the levels are. However, don’t really on a test kit to totally give you a reading. Believe me, copper can be there, even though a hobby kit doesn’t detected it.

 

[jackman]

Well thanks for the info, I guess its always going to be a fish only tank for now until I get the courage to tank the tank down, and start all over.
RULE NO.1 NEVER LISTEN TO YOUR LOCAL FISH STORE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!

 

[beth]

Jack, when you're ready to make the change out, we are here to help you.