RUST!!!!

[2tank]

Hi R2R family. I have a 75g saltwater tank with a wet/dry filter underneath it. It’s been up and going almost 9 months now. It’s fish only. While messing around underneath the tank today I happened to notice I had a rusty pipe clamp in the bottom of the filter. I have no idea how long it had been in there. So I get it out but now what do I need to do? Will the water be ok? Do I need to do a wc? Any suggestions is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[WV Reefer]

Hi R2R family. I have a 75g saltwater tank with a wet/dry filter underneath it. It’s been up and going almost 9 months now. It’s fish only. While messing around underneath the tank today I happened to notice I had a rusty pipe clamp in the bottom of the filter. I have no idea how long it had been in there. So I get it out but now what do I need to do? Will the water be ok? Do I need to do a wc? Any suggestions is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I’m sure it’s fine since you didn’t even know it was there. :)

 

[saltwater unlimited]

I’m sure there is a lot of rust in our tanks and we don’t even know about it

 

[Crabs McJones]

If it's a fish only you're fine :)

 

[Toofattofish]

You got free GFO. ;) I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Salt = corrosion. Think of all the sunken ships in the ocean. Would have to be a high content to affect your system.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Just to be clear to others that may skim through this post and think rusting metal is ok in your reef, it’s NOT.. in a FISH ONLY tank you may be OK but iron in even small amounts can be devastating to corals, I recently experienced this first hand after one of my tanks went down hill fast, over a few day period I had checked every possible cause and found nothing.. watching the continued decline in my tank I went through it again and found a small rusty magnet, after removing it I did a large water change and added a poly filter.. the next day I saw a major improvement to tank and a few days later the tank was back to normal, the poly filter turned orange indicating it was absorbing iron.. IMO there is no reason to leave rusting metal in any tank

 

[rkpetersen]

The comments in this thread so far are mostly about the iron in rust, but that isn't the only issue or necessarily the important one. Iron doesn't stick around long at all in most salt water aquaria, especially if you run carbon, polyfilter or a macroalgae fuge or scrubber. The potentially more concerning issue is the other metallic elements that are often found in steel and which can be released in substantial quantities by a rusting device underwater. Chromium, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum, vanadium and others. We have NO real idea what levels of these metals might be toxic to our livestock, besides a handful of studies with specific elements and specific creatures, so it's best to keep them as close to normal seawater as possible.

 

[Instigate]

The comments in this thread so far are mostly about the iron in rust, but that isn't the only issue or necessarily the important one. Iron doesn't stick around long at all in most salt water aquaria, especially if you run carbon, polyfilter or a macroalgae fuge or scrubber. The potentially more concerning issue is the other metallic elements that are often found in steel and which can be released in substantial quantities by a rusting device underwater. Chromium, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum, vanadium and others. We have NO real idea what levels of these metals might be toxic to our livestock, besides a handful of studies with specific elements and specific creatures, so it's best to keep them as close to normal seawater as possible.

This!

 

[Greybeard]

RKPetersen for the win.

If it was a pure iron bit that was rusting, that's one thing... but who knows what is in that alloy. Corrosion from some commonly used materials can be devastating to our tanks. I had some major issues once with a coated deck screw that got dropped in my sump. Coated with what? Who knows. It wasn't enough to keep it from corroding, that much was obvious when I found the screw. What sort of alloy? Once again, who knows. All I know for certain was that it was killing my reef.

Excepting titanium, I don't want metal in my tank AT ALL. What I can't avoid must be fully encapsulated, and inspected periodically.

 

[declanisadog]

I actually logged on to pontificate about exactly this, and saw your thread.

I've been experiencing some decline in a bunch of my corals over the last couple weeks, and hadn't been able to put my finger on exactly what it was. No PE on acros, color turning really drab, I had a lepto frag completely die...that sort of thing. Today I found a screw in what can only be described as a puddle of rust in my ATO container. Fingers crossed this cures my ills...

 

[Greybeard]

Today I found a screw in what can only be described as a puddle of rust in my ATO container. Fingers crossed this cures my ills...

In this type of situation, I highly recommend Poly-Filter. It'll pull many different sorts of contaminants from your tank. Not something you want to run all the time, but if you've got a known contaminate source, Poly-filter may well help your system to recover much more quickly. It's worked for me in the past.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

I was having some issues browning out and STN was effecting many of my SPS. LPS, clam and soft corals looked fine. Water quality was in check, temp and SG was stable and I could not find the cause. I had recently upgraded tank size and blamed the transfer. Then one day I dropped a Koralia mount mag on the sand, pulled it out and it was covered in black iron particals. The sand was used (bleached and rinsed before use) and I dont know the source and it was full the that black metallic powder. Changed out the sand and within a few weeks the sps started to make a turn around.

 

[Retro Reefer]

I actually logged on to pontificate about exactly this, and saw your thread.

I've been experiencing some decline in a bunch of my corals over the last couple weeks, and hadn't been able to put my finger on exactly what it was. No PE on acros, color turning really drab, I had a lepto frag completely die...that sort of thing. Today I found a screw in what can only be described as a puddle of rust in my ATO container. Fingers crossed this cures my ills...

as I pointed out try using a poly filter and if it turns orange you know you have high levels of iron oxides in your water.. a couple large water changes would also be beneficial.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Another interesting note, after I had cleared the iron oxides from my tank and things bounced back I noticed a color shift in some of my corals.. this little guy came in as a pea size hitch hiker 2 years ago and has always been a bright lime green, after the High iron event it’s now a paler green and has orange stripes as can be seen in the inclosed picture

 

[declanisadog]

I unfortunately have experience using poly filters, but didn’t have one on hand today. I did a big WC, and changed out my carbon. I’ll probably head to the store to grab one tomorrow