Auto top off magnets rusting

[jason]

I cleaned my sump and took out my rinse auto topoff and noticed the magnets rusting. Is this common? The reason I was cleaning everything out was due to corals not looking so good. Good this be a culprits? Not very happy since I have a tunze top off on my larger tank also.

 

[Gonebad395]

That could be the culprit you don’t have a clue what is really in that magnet so you don’t know what’s really leaching into your tank. I would call them and replace

 

[Brad Miller]

YUK !
UNEXCEPTABLE !
WARRANTY... AND TELL THEM ALL YOUR FISH AND CORAL DIED TOO !

 

[TheHarold]

YUK !
UNEXCEPTABLE !
WARRANTY... AND TELL THEM ALL YOUR FISH AND CORAL DIED TOO !

Yay! Fraud!

Id**t

 

[Retro Reefer]

A rusting magnet just about crashed my tank a while back, all my stony corals where suffering tremendously until I found it.. after doing a few large water changes and adding a poly filter my tank turned around quickly.

 

[Tom@HaslettMI]

Definitely the culprit. A rusty magnet killed all my SPS and many LPS a few years back. The only magnets in my tank now are impellers.

Tom

 

[jason]

Since this is a Tunze forum shouldn’t there be an employee looking over this?

 

[Retro Reefer]

Since this is a Tunze forum shouldn’t there be an employee looking over this?

I would contact them directly, they don’t seem to very active in the forum.

 

[Reef Jedi]

Yea... that’s no good! Don’t use that again and if it were me I’d stay away from any magnet in the tank. Maybe look into a gravity fed system if you can set it up.

 

[Gareth elliott]

I dont trust neodymium magnets, its doesnt take a lot to crack the seal of the plastic they are housed in. One time of letting them smack together can do it. Quick coating of plastidip before use can save a lot of head ache.

Ceramic magnets, the chunky ones, do not have the same worry they can not “rust” they are baked rust to begin with [emoji23]

 

[Reefcowboy]

Every magnet I ever put in the tank gets a nice bead of silicone on the joint halves first. Saltwater will find its way sooner or later. Rust is a silent killer for corals for sure

 

[mfinn]

@rvitko might be able to help

 

[RobMcC]

Any iron leaching into the water column probably won't be an issue in the reef. However magnets are often made from alloys, many of which could potentially be harmful. Nickel for example is present in many magnet alloys, and although nickel is essential in small amounts, it can be toxic to marine invertebrates:

From a literature review posted at http://www.ukmarinesac.org.uk/activities/water-quality/wq8_8.htm:

"Potential effects include acute toxicity to algae and invertebrates (in particular molluscs) at concentrations in the water column of dissolved nickel above the proposed EQS of 15 µg l-1 (annual average) of dissolved nickel."

 

[rvitko]

As RobMcC said, this magnet is not toxic, when people describe losses due to magnets, this is due to rare earth magnets which are typically copper and nickel plated and it is the copper and nickel which cause losses and their is some possibility the neodymium itself is toxic as it is usually an amalgam with boron and this and the neodymium could have toxic effects but not on the level of copper and nickel. We do not use such magnets in our magnet holders, while we use rare earth magnets, they are non plated, raw magnets and the magnet holder you show is a much older design, this design is a ferrite magnet, it is a manmade ceramic, what most impellers are made out of and is entirely inert. Under the magnets is a plain iron plate, it is not galvanized or plated in any way. While it is possible the iron plate under it is rusting, this tends to have a distinct appearance, usually a bullseye like stain where their is a hole and the rust emanating from the hole forms a ring like stain. When the rust is flaky like this, the main culprit tends to be attracted iron particles, while their are numerous sources from sand, household particles from sharpening knives, using steel wool, driving in nails and screws, left over from the machining processes at the factory, the most common source is just GFO dust, GFO is literally just pelletized rust which should give you a feel for the toxicity in this case, at worst if the magnet has a rusted iron plate, you have just made GFO, nothing more. My hunch is, that if you soaked the magnet in a mild acid and cleaned it well with a brush, you will remove the staining and it is not the magnet holder that is rusting, it simply picked up material that is rusting. The current model magnet holder is neodymium and is fully coated, the only real benefit is that being glass smooth, very little can stick to it, compared to the 3D surface on the older design.