copper in my water

[lnarobbins]

hello everybody, I got a problem. I have .01 copper in my tank. when I took my sample to the lfs he said to call back tomorrow to see what I need to buy to fix the problem. my house has well water and I really don't want to buy water every 2 weeks for my 90g tank I just got 2 clumps of frog spawn, some colt coral a big thing of button polyps and huge clump of waving hands. plus alot of fish anyway I was wondering what to do I would like to put a clam in sometime. but I need to fix the copper problem
thanx for the help
Alan

 

[beth]

Get a good quality RO/DI system and filter your water.

 

[lnarobbins]

ok, sounds good whats a RO/DI? how big of one should I get (90g tank) and, what brand, and finally how much should I expect to spend on the thing
thanx
Alan

 

[dreeves]

RO/DI...Reverse Osmosis/Deionization...a filtering process for water...
Reverse Osmosis forces water through a thin film or membrane...allowing mainly pure water through...although purer then without...still some ions (positive/negative) will get through.
Deionization...a set resins which absorb both the positive/negative ions...this will include nitrates, phosphates, silicates, etc...
The entire system is a water purifier. The size of the unit is measured in gallons per day (gpd). The bigger the more production in shorted time.
This water would or could be used for your drinking water too. There are non-aqaurium related companies available who sell dual purpose (domestic drinking and reef) units.
This water would be either as good and most likely better then the bottled water you would purchase.

 

[sammystingray]

No point in spending all kinds of money on fish, corals, and creatures to have them all die. How much pressure does your well have?

 

[rhomer]

you can completely forget about any inverts in that tank forever. You will never get all of that copper out. Any level of copper will kill inverts almost immediatly. It will turn your snails to liquid in a matter of a day. On the flip side you will never have problems with sick fish. A fish only tank would be pretty cool.

 

[saltynewbie]

i will have to disagree with the above post... i had copper off the charts in my tank not too long ago, but with the aid of cuprisorb, poly-filters, and numerous water changes, the copper has been undetectable for about a month now. but that is just my situation. i think you should try this combo and see what happens. worked for me. HTH

 

[rhomer]

Yeah, but can you keep any inverts alive in your tank????
I'm speaking from experience, even if copper is undetectable with test kits, it only takes a little. BTW if you have any rock or sand, then these will absorb the copper, and slowly leach it back into the system, so you might appear to have it under control then wham all your inverts die.
You could go years pouring money into a system that will never seem to get stable. You might as well start with a new tank if you plan on keeping any inverts.
I'm telling you this from experience, and just about any shark on this board will back me up on this one.

 

[saltynewbie]

i have mushrooms, snails, hermitts and a CBS for now...
i will add that this is just MY experience. i may have just been lucky.

 

[lnarobbins]

my well was dug by hand over 100 years ago by my great, great grandpa. my house is on the original farm. last summer we drilled a new well and use tho old one as a resevour. I've done some looking and I think I might go with a kent maxxima ro/di max 50 and put it under the kitchen sink for the tank and drinking water(the wife is from town and won't drink the well water) so maybe she will now
we will see what happens
thanx guys
alan