activated carbon?

kingraham

kingraham

New member
I have been using carbon in my tank and changing it every 3 to 4 weeks. do i really need carbon? i've heard that some people don't use it at all.
 
OK,well coninued good luck to you Some folks run tanks witout it,so, it's not an abosoute necessity but ther are plenty of good resons to useit and no ral reasons not to.. I doubt the lack of GAC has much to do with growth. It pulls out organics that can be harmful and some that discolor the water. I've always run it 24/7 @ 1/2 cup per 50 gallons, changed monthly or 1/3 cup per 50 gallons with rox 8 carbn.
 
I started running it a week ago and have seen better expansion on corals than every. Some zoas that have been closed for weeks are starting to open. So my experiance in a short time is, I like it!
 
A lot of corals, particularly soft corals, release toxins that inhibit the growth of competing corals. Some of these toxins can even be lethal in high doses. Carbon helps to rid the water of many of these compounds.

Be sure to use quality carbon and rinse it thoroughly before use. If you have it in a fluidized bed reactor don't let the flow get high enough to tumble the carbon.

Personally I would not run a tank without carbon.
 
I use rox carbon in a brs reactor.

Side question for people that use the dual brs reactors do you run the carbon in the chamber, with the pads on ether side?
 
E_rock said:
I use rox carbon in a brs reactor.

Side question for people that use the dual brs reactors do you run the carbon in the chamber, with the pads on ether side?
Click to expand...

That's how I did it for about 4 years. The chamber started to become a maintenance nuisance for various reasons (flow getting clogged, carbon solidified once, collected a weird pink slime once) and I decided to try running it passively in a bag between baffles in my sump. I managed to drop the chamber and cracked it, which pretty much locked me into the decision to go passive.

Back on topic, I have a mixed reef that includes kenya trees and xenia isolated in my refugium. I wouldn't consider running a system without any carbon.

Could what tycoakley is describing be more of a matter of him running too much carbon? Similar to when people run too much GFO too soon and end up removing things that SPS feed on? We'd need to know more about the system (volume, how much carbon, what type of corals) to speculate, but it would be interesting to get to the bottom of the observation.
 
I started using carbon with my very first tank when it was all we had for filtration, and I've yet to find a valid reason to stop.
 
I absolutely encourage all reefers to use carbon. Many of the reasons have already been posted but I'll give mine none the less: water clarity (better light penetration), doc catcher, toxin catcher (I have leathers in particular that I worry about battling each other), smell catcher (a great side benefit of carbon), and more!

I have a sump less 40br tank, I run the carbon through filter floss in a hob filter, and even then it does wonders for the tank!
 
E_rock said:
I use rox carbon in a brs reactor.

Side question for people that use the dual brs reactors do you run the carbon in the chamber, with the pads on ether side?
Click to expand...

I used a brs double for over year. Changed the in line orfer for carbon and gfo,addded extra sponge top and bottom for carbon . Never got it to work k right, flow wise for both media . Didn't like the factthat I couldn't observe th gfo . Finally I split the double into two singles. I use one for gac. Two little fishes reactors for gfo . The extra canister from the double went to the ro/di unit as a second di canister.
 
I have a brs dual reactor and the carbon chamber never seems to have a full amount of water like the gfo. I tried to let the air out and I just noticed it happened again. Anyone know how to prevent this from happening ?
 
I run both GAC and GFO in their own reactor's 24/7, 1 1/2 cups ROX 0.8 GAC, changed monthly, 1 1/2 cup HC GFO changed ~ every two + months(depending on Hanna reading).
 
I have the same problem with the air gap in my canister hmm

I have noticed the newer generation of Brs reactors have a more clear tube inside of the canister, than the older ones do. So I can see my Gfo well
 
Fritz, if you haven't bought some already let me know, you can have the rest of mine. I've stopped using it for now due to concerns about potential to contribute to HLLE in tangs. I have an older tang in my tank right now that has moderate HLLE already so I'm trying to reduce the potential to make it worse.

Reading material:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/activated-carbon-affirmed-as-causative-agent-for-hlle-disease

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blo...ted-in-inducing-head-and-lateral-line-erosion

http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/activated-carbon-hlle-smoking-gun-found

As a disclaimer, I'm not trying to be a scare monger and I don't really hold a firm position of believing these findings, I'm just trying to reduce risk. I've run various tanks with and without carbon over the years, I know I can be "successful" without it, so I'm not concerned.
 
I typically only run carbon when I goof around with my xenia or see that something has attacked it. Most of the time I do not run carbon and my SPS's do just fine.
 
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