Let me let you about the last 24 hrs.

[badoleross]

Last night when I came home from work I noticed my Porc Puffer had a spot on his eye that looked pretty serious. :thinking: I took a picture of it and headed to the LFS for medication. After talking to a LFS "expert" he recommened a copper based medication for my puffer. He mentioned that if I treated the fish in my maintank I would never be able to keep inverts or corals due to the copper. No big deal, it's a FOWLR tank, I have no need for inverts or corals. So, I added the medication to my tank, my 220 gallon tank with 180lbs of live rock. I wake up this morning and my normaly clear tank is cloudy. Concerned, I throw a question out there on the forums concerning copper meds and find out that the copper will kill everything in my tank with the exception of the fish.

Now in panic mode, I change 40 gallons of water, add carbon to the tank in an attempt to savemy LR. Within 2 hours my ammonia went from 0.5 to 5.0. Every pound of live rock that was in my tank had to come out and is now part of my new zen garden.

I just spent $1000.00 re-ordering live rock, new substrate and salt mix. I also flooded my downstaris when I forgot the hose was running. My wife reminded me about it when she got home and saw water flowing through the garage. Lesson learned......copper in QT tanks only!

 

[jacknjill]

not to bust your bubble, but the copper will also stay in the seams of your tank

 

[jacknjill]

sounds like you day has been pretty cruddy

 

[badoleross]

I plan on draining the tank and cleaning everything with a nice citric acid scub a couple times over and the refill and drain thing a couple times. Not to mention the copper tests.

 

[saltfan]

Run carbon in your system for the next 2 weeks ( ALOT OF IT) and change it every 2 days, this will help to remove the rest of your bad day.

 

[badoleross]

It really has been one of those days. I still have the fish in the tank and have carbon filled stockings in my sump. I hope to have everything fixed on April 1st sometime. Thats when the new LR arrives.

 

[fishieness]

wow, that is rough.....
did you use the recomended dose? copper will kill a lot, but going form .5 to 5.0 in 2 hours seems liek an awful lot.
and make sure to wash out your tank GOOD when you empty it.

 

[seannmelly]

yup deff killed your live rock

 

[badoleross]

I think the ammonia went up so fast becaue I had 180lbs of good live rock. When the die off started, it came fast. The smell from the rock coming from the tank was pretty bad. It surprised me that it went that fast and there was no stopping it. Newbie mistake! Never again.

 

[1911_guy]

Holy Crap!!! :scared:
Wow, That's a pretty bad day. You know what they say (at least now you do)...QT tanks a must and don't trust the "expert" at your LFS.
To maybe help you feel better, I just dropped $600 on a generator this morning. My power was out for over 4 hours.

Never again!

 

[badoleross]

What make it worse is that I had a 55 gallon QT sitting here that Ididnt use because I didnt think the copper woud kill off everything. I really thought it would just make it unusable for corals and inverts.

 

[pfitz44]

That LR now has copper leached into it. I wouldnt use it in anything but a FOWLR.. you still may have some problems with it

 

[badoleross]

I had it in a FOWLR tank. The problem with it now even in a FOWLR tank is that the rock has copper in it and nothing will grow on the rock or in the tank including bacteria. That being the case I have no filtration. The rock right now is sitting in a trashcan in the garage until I get a chance to get rid of it. If anyne out there want it and has a use for it it's here. I have already ordered new rock and managed to stabilize the tank without losing a single fish. There are 11 fish in the tank includin a M. groupe, V. Lion, Hippo tank, PB Tang, Huma trigger, pink tail trigger,P. Puffer, and assorted other tangs and triggers.