I'm with you for the copper. I had the same problem on a place I rented for a few years. The previoius place I was using water straight from the tap and the corals looked good. I had a bit of algae problem, but overall the tank looked good and their was no copper. I was still fairly new in the hobby at the time.
Then we move to this newer place and slowly (but not too slowly) my corals start to look bad. My mushrooms are always shrunk with their inside showing.
After doing some some reading and thinking it dawned on me it sounded like copper poisioning. I wasn't growing much for green stuff either so another reason to suspect copper. Sure shootin I tested the water and their were High levels of copper in the tap water. I picked up a Tap Water Purifier the next day which is carbon and a deionizer and started do water changes. I also picked up some PURIGEN and started running that in the tank as the rock had all absorbed the copper. All the calcium based rock had absorbed the copper. But things slowly improved. It took about half a year and adding some new live rock and dumping a few pieces that obviously were loaded with copper judging by the growth patterns from rock to rock.
I've been ramblin on so long I forgot the question forgive me, but all I can say is you can put me down for copper plumbing ruining your reef tank if you don't filter the tap water. I was fairly new to the hobby at the time. It would never happen now. Now I run a 5 stage water filter.
Bill
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