activated carbon

[sasikan]

does anywone use activated carbon ? ( dw1305 Darrel) sent this link :<http://www.ukaps.org/> and this guy (Joe Gargas) talks about filtering water with activated carbon before it goes in your tank . A long long time ago when i was young i used to have carbon to filter my tanks i dont anymore (should i) if i remember well carbon would loose its filtering powers after a short time ?

 

[Mike Wise]

I don't use carbon. Carbon's ability to absorb pollutants varies with the quality of the carbon. The carbon sold for aquarium use is usually not very good. I once had the opportunity to grab a broken bag (50 lbs/20 Kg) of top quality carbon, but decided not to do it. I was the supervisor of a 'pump and treat' remediation project on a Superfund site. The site had some really nasty chemicals that I didn't want to take into my fishroom.

 

[Christople]

Carbon is useful for a short period, you are right, and it does absorb various things. Good or bad. For example I don't use carbon in my planted tank because it sucks up the liquid fertilizers I put in the tank. I would use it if I didn't have plants but also it does cost quite a bit to keep it effective and fresh. Although I've heard of seachem purigen being good.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I did post the link, it wasn't particularly about the carbon, but more about the water chemistry bits, you can view it here: <http://tbas1.com/TBASpdf/May2009.pdf>.

Personally I don't use carbon, or any other non-biological media, in my filters, but carbon won't do any harm and as Sasikan suggests its CEC and AEC are quickly exhausted, at which point it becomes a biological media. Also I like some humic acids and tannins in the water, which the charcoal would remove.

Filtration is all about biological processes, but there isn't really any money in that for the sellers of "essential" additives and other snake oil. I've had the same coarse Poret sponges and ceramic rings for the last 10 years, and I would expect they will manage another 10.

For example I don't use carbon in my planted tank because it sucks up the liquid fertilizers I put in the tank

Shouldn't do, they are exchange sites on the carbon, which means it behaves in a similar manner to a clay based substrate planting substrate.

Carbon's ability to absorb pollutants varies with the quality of the carbon. The carbon sold for aquarium use is usually not very good.

I'll second that, a lot of the charcoal sold isn't really "activated charcoal", that is the term to look for.

Wikipedia gives a pretty good summary of what it can do, and why it can do it. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon>

cheers Darrel