hi i have a 55 gal. i put a briareus in the fully cycled tank. he was doing great for about 1 month and stoped eating. then he started to breath very heavy and died 3 weeks later.last month i got a macropus. he ate like a pig and looked very healthy. last night i put food in his tank and he would not eat first time ever. this morning he was on the glass breathing heavy just like the briarius.all water test are fine. nitrate was high 2 weeks ago but they are about 20 ppm now. i bought the tank used. i rinsed it out very good when i bought it. is it possible there is traces of copper in the tank even though i rinsed it out? i just checked on him and he moved to a different spot but still on the glass w/bad cork screwed arms. i put alot of carbon in 10 mins. ago. does anyone know why i lost 2 octos. is it the tank? i have a diff. 55 gal. w/a bimac. i have had him for over a year. and as far as the one that lookes like he is not going to make it i did get as much info. i could on him . he is a baby macropus.any help please. thankyou jimmy.

Where did you get the aquarium from? If you can track down the previous owner, then you should ask what meds they used in it. If they had used copper before, then most likely yes.

Also, how long was the tank set up before you added the briareus? Just asking because a cycled tank and a "mature" tank are two totally different things.

BTW, welcome to TONMO! How long have you been keeping cephs?

:welcome: to TONMO!

From what Jean said the other day, it sounds like copper is more likely to cause rapid descent into convulsions and death. Since this is more drawn out, looking at water quality seems appropriate. 20ppm shouldn't be fatal, but doing more water changes seems like the best course of action, assuming you can't move the octo to another tank. Where did you get a macropus? Is it the one ReefScavengers had recently? I believe there are copper tests available, too.

yes he is from reefscavengers. i did test for copper it shows none. but like i said i did rinse it out good but for 2 octos to die and look the same way when starting to die i just dont know what i could be. unless even though copper does not show on test maybe even minute traces of copper is doing this? could that be?

i forgot to mention it was a turtle tank before i got it. it has been running for about 1 year now. and it was running for 6 months before the briarius.

what type of turtles? also rinsing a tank would not remove copper that has bound to the silicon.

they were red ear sliders he had 2 of them. but i was thinking i dont think you would use copper for turtles? but i just realized i got a tide pool wet-dry used from a pet shop they probobly used copper at one time. but rinsing it out would not get the copper out? i thought it would. should i put him in a large container and put him in the bimac tank slowly?

Rinsing is not going to remove the copper because copper is a small positively charged ion that can work its way into what we call "silicon". The sealant is actually a silicone. Silicones are chains of silicon atoms, organic and inorganic compounds that are cross-linked together. The small copper ions can form non-covalent bonds with polar function groups of the silicone polymers and stay inside the tank sealant until it is energetically favorable to break that bond and move out of the sealant, such as when there are negatively charged ions or molecules available to bond with.

This is why i strip and re-seal EVERY used tank that is given to me.... even if the previous owner swears that they never used copper, id rather not take my chances and have it leach at some point into the water..... not to mention the chance of a leak...

can the copper be in the silicone and not show on a test kit? and i have a tidepool used. i know they used copper but scrobed it. is it still in the plastic of the wet dry?and what if i just put the silicon over the original silicon will that work?

Plastic is also a polymer and is porous, as in it has little holes that things like copper ions can sit inside of. Even if you soaked the plastic in a solution that could strip the copper ions out of the plastic (which would probably destroy the plastic or taint it with a different compound) you could never guarantee that you got all of the ions out.

The reason a copper test might give a negative result when there is copper in the sealant is that the test only detects copper present in the water sample.

Resealing with more silicone would probably be a waste of time and money as the copper ions would be able to work through the new silicone just as easily as the old. It may just take longer. The best way to think about it is that polymers are very slow moving liquids, like glass, and anything that can get in to them can get back out.

For information on copper toxicity in animals, see this link.

http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/infobase/eisler/chr_33_copper.pdf

Page 81 has information specific to mollusks...

if there is minute traces of copper . enough to kill a octo why is the calupra growing just fine? by the way he is dead. im very upset he was my favorite one.but just talking to you it makes me feel a little better. at least he was not someones dinner.can anyone answer this question? thankyou so much jimmy

We don't know that copper was the problem in this instance, just that is a problem that ceph owners should be aware of in relation to used tanks. The other thing to think about is that the tank had previously been used for aquatic turtles, which have been found to be carriers of salmonella. I just googled octopus and salmonella and came up with a journal article in Letters in Applied Microbiology this year about salmonella detection assays in cephlopods and shellfish. So that is another possibility.

As for caulerpa, it is possible that some strains of it may have copper resistance. The only thing we do know is that if two octos have died in the same tank both in under a month, that tank should probably not be used in future for octos.

esquid,
Do you know if acrylic also retains copper?

I've never read anything that specifically talks about copper and acrylic tanks. But just looking a the chemical structure of the acrylic, Poly(methyl methacrylate) or PMMA, there is an oxygen double bonded to carbon, a carbonyl group, on the side chain of the monomer. The oxygen of a carbonyl group is slightly negative because it pulls the bonded electrons closer to itself and electrons have a negative charge. A Cu2+, copper ion, would be attracted to this and could move around in the material by popping from one oxygen to another. I may have to ask my o-chem professor what he thinks about it.

interresting thing in the wiki entry on PMMA:
"PMMA has poor resistance to solvents, as it swells and dissolves easily. It also has poor resistance to many other chemicals on account of its easily hydrolyzed ester groups."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/PMMA-repeat.png/100px-PMMA-repeat.png

I've never read anything that specifically talks about copper and acrylic tanks. But just looking a the chemical structure of the acrylic, Poly(methyl methacrylate) or PMMA, there is an oxygen double bonded to carbon, a carbonyl group, on the side chain of the monomer. The oxygen of a carbonyl group is slightly negative because it pulls the bonded electrons closer to itself and electrons have a negative charge. A Cu2+, copper ion, would be attracted to this and could move around in the material by popping from one oxygen to another. I may have to ask my o-chem professor what he thinks about it.

interresting thing in the wiki entry on PMMA:
"PMMA has poor resistance to solvents, as it swells and dissolves easily. It also has poor resistance to many other chemicals on account of its easily hydrolyzed ester groups."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/PMMA-repeat.png/100px-PMMA-repeat.png



Well, I was interested in the acrylic question too but um I feel like I just had the space between my ears cleaned out trying to understand that. :banghead: lol. I guess I will wait for a more lamens term for that one.. :roflmao:

I was trying to explain it in a way that didn't require two semesters of chemistry to understand, but well it is chemistry and that was the simple version. To give you short answer: i don't know for certain about copper and acrylic, but because silicone and acrylic are fairly similar substances i expect copper would behave in one the way it behaves in the other. My o-chem/bio-chem prof has office hours this week so i'll run it by him, he likes questions like this.

hi is there anyway to save the glass 55 gal. and the plastic tidepool wet-dry? to get any copper out if thats the problem? what else could it be? does anyone know? like i said the water tested perfect. but why would 2 octos die with in 1-2 months of being in that tank. come to think of it i used that tide pool wet-dry on the tank w/the bimac for a while and he is doing fine. i have had him for about 1 year now. anyone have any thoughts? thankyou. i used the tide pool on the bimac tank for about 4 months.

if there is traces of copper wouldnt my plants die to? they are growing great?

Unfortunately a small amount of copper won't affect your plants much but will kill an octopus. It's near impossible to get rid of copper from plastics we had to re-plumb the entire system after our copper episode (and as an added precaution we relined all the tanks on the effected side) I would suggest that copper may be the culprit (although the Nitrates were a bit higher than I like) we had a fairly hefty dose which led to convulsions and death we ended up with about 0.5mg/L which is absolutely HUGE (LC50 values are usually less![ that is the concentration required to kill half of the test subjects]). I would suspect that lower doses may not be so.......dramatic.....

J

I was scrolling back in this thread and I coudn't find the level of nitrates. What do you think about the level of nitrates for octopuses, Jean?

Nancy

In the first post jimmy_22 said that the nitrate level is about 20 ppm and it had been higher previously.

I was scrolling back in this thread and I coudn't find the level of nitrates. What do you think about the level of nitrates for octopuses, Jean?

Nancy

We like 10ppm or less Nancy, of course it does help that we have a flow through system :grin:

It just helps keep algal blooms, illness etc at bay.

J

I'd like to collect the info here and that a few folks like Jean & Cuttlegirl posted recently in other threads into a "copper mini-faq"-- is everyone OK if I lift some of these explanations verbatim (with credit, of course)?

Sometimes I think having a TONMO wiki sort of thing for stuff that can have an easier-to-search community store for stuff there's a lot of lore on, but that no one is quite confident enough to declare themselves to be the "single authority" on... Although maybe Nancy & Colin will obviate the need for that with their new book!

'sOK with me!

Monty,
The wiki concept would be terrific. The search engine just doesn't get it for this kind of search. Hopefully, we would get direct contributions and some of the staff could make special requests of our specialists for often asked questions that all have multiple answers buried in the dialogs ... somewhere. I have taken to digging up most of the threads I reference because it is so difficult for someone who has not read the thread to find it. A wiki on technical issues would be a terrific start, then it might be possible to link back to threads where the topics are discussed. THEN if Tony could come up with a button that any member could click to suggest a post be added to the wiki, maintenance might be less of a nightmare.

Monty,
The wiki concept would be terrific. The search engine just doesn't get it for this kind of search. Hopefully, we would get direct contributions and some of the staff could make special requests of our specialists for often asked questions that all have multiple answers buried in the dialogs ... somewhere. I have taken to digging up most of the threads I reference because it is so difficult for someone who has not read the thread to find it. A wiki on technical issues would be a terrific start, then it might be possible to link back to threads where the topics are discussed. THEN if Tony could come up with a button that any member could click to suggest a post be added to the wiki, maintenance might be less of a nightmare.

Yeah, I'm in a "something like that ought to work" frame of mind. Wikis often work better than I expect, so if we paid attention to make sure no bad edits were there, I think we'd be OK. Maybe having some rule that only allows people who have posted X times, or who have been approved by staff, or something, would keep spammers & vandals out. I've got a pending request with Tony about the forum search, I've been finding it difficult to get good search results for a few months... perhaps I should ping him again. I've been using the "search TONMO.com with google" thing on the front page sometimes, although that doesn't index supporters or exotics.

I think a few prime candidates for some sort of organized reference are: copper, cycling, how to raise large-egged octos, and how to try and raise small-egged octos even though you're going to fail. Something about tank size, octo species, and why smaller tanks/octos aren't good for beginners would probably be good too, even though that's covered in the articles pretty well.

Anyway, I was inspired to try to start with a mini-FAQ about copper, since there's been a flurry of good information, but in a format that's going to be hard to search for later...

Monty,
The articles should also be in the wiki XREF since I don't believe they are in the search base at all. A wiki would extend the use of the articles, not replace it. IMO, the original entries should only be by staff or by special request but links to forum entries should be available to all members. This keeps down the content and reviews to important concepts but allows crossreferencing by anyone who finds (or originates a diatribe) helpful posts. Sound good on paper anyway.

I'd like to collect the info here and that a few folks like Jean & Cuttlegirl posted recently in other threads into a "copper mini-faq"-- is everyone OK if I lift some of these explanations verbatim (with credit, of course)?

Sometimes I think having a TONMO wiki sort of thing for stuff that can have an easier-to-search community store for stuff there's a lot of lore on, but that no one is quite confident enough to declare themselves to be the "single authority" on... Although maybe Nancy & Colin will obviate the need for that with their new book!

It's ok with me, but I think I just searched for an appropriate article...

well last night i did a huge water change and bleached the tufa rocks and scrubed the hell out of the tank and tide pool. i was thinking why did the bimac live in that same tank the others died in?and what about curpisorb would that take the rest of the copper out? and im running my ozone very high one that tank. after another water change do you guys think it will be safe then? and all the little copepods and brissle worms are still alive. maybe the other problem could be my home made denitrater made from pvc w/25 feet of hose going down then up through bio balls. thats how i got my nitrates down from 100ppm to 20ppm. any more thought before i get another? i dont want to kill himm. thanyou to all your help jimmy. and is there any thing i can use to scrub the wet-dry with that might help getting the copper out? im not a marine expert but something tells me its not the copper. but i trust your answers way befor mine thanks again.

maybe the other problem could be my home made denitrater made from pvc w/25 feet of hose going down then up through bio balls. thats how i got my nitrates down from 100ppm to 20ppm.

It could have been your nitrates - 100 ppm is high for a cephalopod...

well last night i did a huge water change and bleached the tufa rocks and scrubed the hell out of the tank and tide pool. i was thinking why did the bimac live in that same tank the others died in?and what about curpisorb would that take the rest of the copper out? and im running my ozone very high one that tank. after another water change do you guys think it will be safe then? and all the little copepods and brissle worms are still alive. maybe the other problem could be my home made denitrater made from pvc w/25 feet of hose going down then up through bio balls. thats how i got my nitrates down from 100ppm to 20ppm. any more thought before i get another? i dont want to kill himm. thanyou to all your help jimmy. and is there any thing i can use to scrub the wet-dry with that might help getting the copper out? im not a marine expert but something tells me its not the copper. but i trust your answers way befor mine thanks again.

Be sure that the bleach is neutralised before you reintroduce your tufa to the tank. I have very little faith in cuprisorb. If there was copper in the tank then personally I think the only solution for the wet/dry is to replace it. We've never had any luck with cleaning copper out of anything!

That nitrate level was awfully high and may have caused some issues, how old is your test kit? I'm wondering if it really did come down.

J

test kit is about 3 months old. its a doc well fish brand api .if copper residuew is the propblem than why are the copapods and brissel worms and plants doing great? could it be the dentrate filter i built? i have the water just a drip a second it did lower the nitrate from 100 to 20 in 3 months. could that be the problem? the water coming out of the dnitrater has gases in it? the tank is full of clean cycled water but im afraid to put another octo in the tank. someone please help i did everything i thought could be the problem? thanyou all so much.

Some marine invertebrates and plants are quite tolerant of copper. Bristle worms in particular are known for their ability to live in quite polluted environments, some such as Capitella actually favour nutrient enriched (ie polluted ) habitats and show little effect of copper or other heavy metals.

J

i posted this in the wrong title. the reason for all the death was i had refugium mud in my shed not coverd but i rinsed it. but as soon as i took all the mud and sand out it lived and is eatind on his 2nd day. i thoght id never figure it out. after re glueing and rinsing and a million other things i finallt got it thanks to everyone w/there help.