Can high copper level kill corals

[ChrisNash]

Hi , I am new to reefing hobby. My tank is a 184 Gallon tank, 6 weeks old now with 4 clown fishes. The LFS gave me a hammer coral and a leather coral in the fourth week to start with. However both corals never thrived in the tank. The tank began to smell and both corals died. The LFS said it was due to high copper in the water as all the other readings were normal. There are no copper pipes in the tank set up. The ATO uses RODI water directly from the RODI set up. There are however brass fittings in the plumbing that is used to circulate water to the chiller as it is located few meters away from the tank. My question is can high copper kill corals? Can brass fittings raise copper levels? What can I do to bring copper levels down to zero? I bought the tank especially to keep corals and am quite disappointed. Thanks for your advice in advance. Regards Chris

 

[Badilac]

Hi , I am new to reefing hobby. My tank is a 184 Gallon tank, 6 weeks old now with 4 clown fishes. The LFS gave me a hammer coral and a leather coral in the fourth week to start with. However both corals never thrived in the tank. The tank began to smell and both corals died. The LFS said it was due to high copper in the water as all the other readings were normal. There are no copper pipes in the tank set up. The ATO uses RODI water directly from the RODI set up. There are however brass fittings in the plumbing that is used to circulate water to the chiller as it is located few meters away from the tank. My question is can high copper kill corals? Can brass fittings raise copper levels? What can I do to bring copper levels down to zero? I bought the tank especially to keep corals and am quite disappointed. Thanks for your advice in advance. Regards Chris

Yes copper kills Coral! Yes Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. You should have no metal fittings in contact with your tank water unless they are titanium. The chiller should be plumbed using all PVC piping.
Use this to remove copper after you have replaced all the metal fittings.
CupriSorb - Copper Removing Resin - Seachem - Bulk Reef Supply

 

[redfishbluefish]

Yes, copper will kill corals.

And No, I find it hard to believe that a couple brass fittings on a system that is all of six weeks old has put enough copper in your tank to cause coral deaths. I would still consider changing out those brass fittings with PVC.

I'd question some other source of copper....such as, where did you get your rock. If it came from a tank that was treated with copper, it's now leaching that copper out of the rock.