Zinc - yep..it's bad

[blasterman]

Past 48 hours one of my frag tanks which has been healthy and growing a mix of SPS and LPS frags has been having issues and left me scratching my head. Montipora frags have started bleaching, acropora and stylo frags showing PE issues, and some acans clearly stressing. While it's a small tank, 10 gallons, the tank has been really stable and growth / health of all citizens very, very good.

More head scratching...water testing. Nothing wrong.

Then I found it - a penny. It all came back. The night before I had been cleaning up a bit, found a penny on the floor and placed it on the edge of the tank not wanting to sacrifice another vacuum to the appliance gods. I must have then bumped it in the tank while cleaning the glass cover (I keep all my tanks covered with plate glass).

The penny had landed on the base of some rapidly encrusting digipora and left a large white spot where the tissue was. Don't need any more conformation in my book that penny was causing the poisoning, and what are modern U.S penny's made of?

Think about this: while a larger tanks would have obviously dissipated the issue, the problem would have simply accumulated over time and become a more gradual issue. This also leaves me concerned about salt mixes since a test I saw a few years ago indicated metal contamination was found in several brands although at trace levels. In any respect, don't throw pennies in your tank.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Depending on the year it could be 95% copper.. 1982 and later are zinc with copper coating. any of them will probably make your tank angry . Back in the day people used penny's as a copper source to treat fish.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Think of zinc’s as in the marine boating world. When used in saltwater it draws electrical current to them which could also been the cause for the issues. Regardless, prolly not good in any situation!

 

[Smarkow]

Correlation not *always* causation but I do believe you are on the right track.. any chance you have the picture if the penny/digi? Mostly just curious

Thanks for sharing

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Definitely good to get the penny out!

Reminds me of when my young daughter tried to eat one and it stuck in her throat, but that's another story... lol

 

[Smarkow]

Definitely good to get the penny out!

Reminds me of when my young daughter tried to eat one and it stuck in her throat, but that's another story... lol

My wife's favorite story from my parents is when I was five and found a nickel in the couch... I said, "look mom, a nickel!" and promptly swallowed it before she could react. They had to sift through my poo for a week. It's sort of like cleaning a protein skimmer, but for parents?

 

[blasterman]

48 hours and a 30% water change and running AC and the issue is pretty much resolved. Also reminds me I need to share my DIY in tank mayonaise jar cannister filter. If you have a small spare power head you can make a mechanical filter that is amazingly efficient for next to nothing.

All the montipora (digis and caps) have tossed their zooxanthellae algae, but are otherwise fine. I'll just run the lights low and increase feeding a bit. Montipora does this as a defensive tactic and it just makes them hardier. Oddly a 7" blue stag and several different birdsnests had little reaction.

Doing some quick google fu Zinc is an ingredient in algacide.