Copper Question

[dcforester1]

How can you tell if a tank has any copper in it? I just hooked up(yesterday) a Fluvalfilter to my sons tank, it had been up and running for about 2mos. The filter already had pads in it that were fairly new. The person I got it from wasnt sure if they used copper with it, and I didnt really care because there wasnt much in his tank. Well last night I checked it with a Salifert copper test kit, and it came back 0. Late last night I had a snail die, but he hasnt been looking good anyway. Well today it looks like another snail dead, but 2 other look fine, and a hermit crab looks good. The test again is coming up 0. I should have used new pads atleast, but at the time I didnt plan on putting any thing in there that would be affected, and was going to use it as a hospital tank if need be. Does anyone know how long it takes to affect snails, or crabs, and what test, if any would you trust to see if it is indeed the copper, or something else. If it isnt the copper, any ideas why they would be dying.
TIA Derek

 

[nicks387]

If you put carbon in the filter it will take out any copper in the system. I doubt its copper. What are the other parameters? calcium, nitrate, nitrite, alk, PH ?
For some reason snails dont seem to do so well in new systems. Is there enough algae for them to eat?

 

[dcforester1]

All the other parm look fine, the other snail I tought was dying is moving around. So I guess I will just have to wait and see what happens. I just hope there wasnt copper in the filter, because then I am going to be limited in what I can put in there.
Thanks Derek

 

[justintrask]

If there is copper, take out all the media and replace it with carbon, throw carbon in the tank, and a whole bunch of rid-metals, and just let it run through. that should take all the carbon out pretty quickly.