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Yep.Obviously it’s going to depend on what’s rusting but I can say with 100% certainty that some rusting magnets can crash a tank..
I had a thriving 3 year old mixed nano tank that started going down hill fast, My Mont’s died, my Zoa’s melted, all my LPS started receding I did everything I could think of trying to save my tank including multiple searches over a couple weeks for anything that was rusting.
I finally found the culprit (rusting magnet) it was pulled followed by a large water change and I also added poly filters. within a couple day’s I saw a dramatic improvement in the tank and that continued until things where basically back to normal.
Not sure what was in that magnet but it was definitely a tank killer.
Any update on your recovery? I just went through the same. Found a rusty magnet in my rodi barrel after a couple months of watching odd and random heads die off of blastos, chalice recession, torch tissue recession, stn on sps starting with a slow creep from the edge, random euphyllia polyp bail. I’m 3 weeks post magnet removal but like you said, the damage is already done. Rust is a no go for your system. If you have it, in my honest opinion it’s only a matter of time before it catches up. Mine was being introduced via auto top off. Glad I caught it finally but not before losing thousands in livestock.
I aslo hear people saying that rusted screws on their stand are contamination their tanks and I find this very hard to believe.
Hi Randy,Why?
Have you calculated how much copper it takes to boost a tank to problematic levels and conclude it cannot come from corroding screws?
Supposing that 90 ppb (0.09 mg/L) copper is enough to cause issues (there was a case yesterday in the chem forum with a guy using brass connectors and dead corals), then let's see how much that is.
In a 100 Liter aquarium, it takes 9 mg of copper to hit that level.
A 1/2 inch 8-32 pan head screw weighs about 4 pounds per thousand screws, or 0.004 pounds per screw or 1.8 grams (1800 mg) per screw.
Thus, 9 mg is about 0.5% of a single screw.
Could not 0.5% of a brass screw above a tank have corroded and the little bits or drips from it fall into a tank?
Similar calculations could be done for other metals, such as zinc, nickel, etc.
Hi Randy,
I am definitely not a chemist but who uses a brass screw.