Quick question about coral stress

[jonh5150]

As you may have seen in a previous post.....while rearranging my pumps, my lab knocked a powerstrip into my refugium. It tripped the breaker but my corals are very unhappy. They either closed immediately or slowly. I started running new carbon.....did a 20% water change but I am wondering if I should leave the light cycle alone ?

 

[poidog]

carbon and water change won't help if you had an electric shock to the tank. I would run everything as normal with no other changes. Any additional change could add additional stress. Search on stray voltage in the aquarium... lots of stuff to read.

 

[jonh5150]

Thanks Eric.... I did the carbon/water change cause I thought maybe there was copper in the power strip.

 

[poidog]

no no copper as in the metal is fine in your tank unless you put some in and let it corrode in your tank. Copper as the medicine is a liquid form were copper ions are soluble in the liquid medicine.

http://www.seachem.com/Library/SeaGrams/Cupramine.pdf

Once copper (as in the medicine) is in your tank it does not come out. You can rove it from the water column, but rocks, sand, plastic, silicone absorbs the copper and will leach back out over time. This is why you don't use copper in a reef tank. Separate quarantine or hospital tanks are used to treat fish with copper.