# To carbon, or not to carbon?



## vrb th hrb (Feb 20, 2010)

That is the question.....  

I havent been using carbon for a few months now, as money is tight, and I just wanted to give it a try.

Only thing different I've noticed in my tank is more green algae, water smells the same, parameters are the same.

Wouldnt carbon extract the fertilizers I'm using in the tank, ie flourish and excel?

So do you use carbon? Why or why not?

cheers
Mike


----------



## Riceburner (Mar 14, 2008)

I haven't used carbon for years.


----------



## ksimdjembe (Nov 11, 2006)

mostly just to (apparently/ allegedly) remove medications after treatments.


----------



## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

Carbon may adsorb your trace nutrients that you are dosing.

I do not use carbon.


----------



## dl88dl (Mar 8, 2010)

I also don't use carbon...why spent the extra dollars on carbon when you can use it on more fishy


----------



## arinsi (Mar 14, 2010)

if smell and colour is a problem then use it


----------



## Cory (May 2, 2008)

I use it on some occasions either to remove tannin from water or to remove some other dye from the water. Really just any time I feel something is making the water less clear than it could be I'll pop in some carbon as I have lots and lots lying around unused. 99% of the time my filters are sponge or other media only.


----------



## bluegill (Jan 5, 2010)

i would imagine the carbon gets saturated or expended
chemically pretty quickly with all sorts of reactants and are only useful on a short term basis.
I also think it is a waste of money in most cases since
bacteria filtrate the biological waste products and the 
tank is basically a closed system.


----------



## snaggle (Feb 19, 2010)

Only need it when you are trying remove a something from the water such as medication. I dont think I used it in the last 10 years.


----------



## BettaBeats (Jan 14, 2010)

I have a sack of carbon in my kit just in case I need to do chemical filtration. I don't use it in my tanks after I read it sucked up trace minerals.


----------



## Cowboy (Aug 19, 2010)

Cory said:


> 99% of the time my filters are sponge or other media only.


What do you use? sponge and ?????

Thanks


----------



## bluekrissyspikes (Apr 16, 2009)

some filters have floss in them or peices of ceramic instead of sponge.

i wouldn't bother with carbon unless you are removing medication. especially not in a planted tank


----------



## BettaBeats (Jan 14, 2010)

bluekrissyspikes said:


> some filters have floss in them or peices of ceramic instead of sponge.
> 
> i wouldn't bother with carbon unless you are removing medication. especially not in a planted tank


I'm using floss to polish my water with 2 Aquaclear sponges in my filter, and a mesh sac of ceramic pellets. This seems to work well, and if I ever need to quarantine I now have a sponge I loaded with active bacteria I can put into my whisper 10 filter on a pinch.

I keep my carbon in case of any nutrient increases.. I had green water from dosing too many trance elements and carbon cleared it up by removing the nutrients.
I don't think carbon affects macronutrients though.


----------



## Cory (May 2, 2008)

Cowboy said:


> What do you use? sponge and ?????
> 
> Thanks


Mostly sponge but occasionally filter insert pads (which often have carbon in them) or different types of porous materials designed for aquarium filtration such as the eheim or fluval cannister filter media. Nothing unusual or special though. Im a huge fan of the aquaclear sponge inserts and generally cut them up for use with all power filters and the rest of my tanks run on air driven sponge filters.


----------



## Roberacer1 (Aug 21, 2010)

Also if carbon is left in for a long time some say it can begin to leach whatever chemicals it has absorbed back into the water.


----------



## Roberacer1 (Aug 21, 2010)

Cowboy said:


> What do you use? sponge and ?????
> 
> Thanks


Filter media varies greatly. A lot depends on the system itself. Mostly it is surface area to cultivate bacteria culture (nitrosomonous and nitrobacter). At one point I had a DYI filter that I used varying sizes of gravel to do that (a trickle filter and it worked amazingly). I grew plants in it too. It was basically a big pale with a bunch of wholes in the bottom. It was suspended over the top of a huge cow watering trough. We bought it at a farm supply joint. It was the biggest one they had. I used a power head with a hose attached to it to pump the water up to it (actually it ended up being 2 as 1 wasn't enough). The trough had a thousand (on average) feeder gold fish in it and when I put the filter in was absolutely disgusting water quality wise. The canister rig that was rigged to it originally could not keep up to that. Once the bacterial colony got established (I used a half of a gallon jug of cycle in it on the first day) the very murky brown water that went in the top came out perfectly clear. At one point you could literally see the clean water mixing with the dirty. The various gravel particles probably totaled over a foot deep in the bucket (approx a 2.5 gallon pale). Oh I should mention it did get clogged after a few months and I had to backwash it in order to get the water to flow through the gravel again instead of just pouring over the outside of the bucket. Like I say it was just regular aquarium gravel. I didn't even rinse it first. That said my discus tank has peat in the filter to buffer the ph of the water for the fish.


----------



## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

I only use carbon in tanks that I do not dose with Excel, and which are not planted. 

As has been pointed out; the Biggest use for carbon is to help remove medications after you dose meds. Therefore lots of people only use it on occasion, which is my case.

Second biggest use for carbon is that, after it passivates (not very long actually!) it becomes an inert host for biological filtration. Cheap, and works great, for almost a year, before it breaks down and starts releasing crap into your water.  Your mileage may vary. 

In short, unless you want to change your carbon every week, you probably won't see much effect, good, bad or otherwise. Carbon sponges up anything and everything, until it is full, then it does nothing, more or less. So it seems doubly silly to use carbon, plus dosing excel. You may as well run a ceramic heater and a window air-conditioning unit at the same time in the same room. Or a humidifier and dehumidifier. Actually, my tanks downstairs are effectively a humidifier, and I have a dehumidifier right beside them. Sometimes I dump the water from the dehumidifier back into one of my tanks. Doesn't seem to hurt anything. But I do feel a bit silly. 


W


----------

