running carbon in a reef tank

[lossman]

I have a thread in another forum where I am asking people about running carbon in a reef tank. We are having another minor brown algae bloom and I heard that running carbon in your tank will help with this. Many people have replied that they run carbon 24/7. The directions on the container say to run it for 3 days out of the month only as it takes good stuff out of your water as well as the bad stuff. I'd like to run it a full week (in a mesh bag in a high flow area of the sump) and then do a big water change to put back any good nutrients it takes out. Is this a good idea or should we just wait and put it in 3 days before we do the water change?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I run carbon 24/7, and do not think it is hurting anything, but I also do not think it is going to help with most algae problems very much.

When you cay brown algae, do you think it is diatoms, or cyano, or something else?

Before doing a water change, let's make sure the problem isn't the source water (with silica for diatoms, for example).

 

[lossman]

It's not cyano. It's brown fuzzy stuff. It started with just a bit on the magfloats that I have the ph's attached to. Then a bit on the front glass. Today I see it on the sand bed. It looks yellow/brown on the sand. We have a good amount of chaeto in the refugium that seems to be thriving. All our livestock looks good. We do bi-weekly water changes and use only RO/DI water. Currently using Tropic Marin as our salt in an attempt to raise the ca a bit. Bulbs are only 6 months old so don't think that's it. Params are as follows:

TDS is currently 3
Temp - 78 - 80
PH - 8.26
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10 - 15
Salinity - 1.024 (bringing that slowly up to 1.026)
Phosphates - 0
Calcium - 355 (bringing that up also)
kH - 8.0
copper - 0
Iron - 0
Silicate - <.1
Iodide - 0
Magnesium - 875

We currently use kalkwasser in our auto top-off. We don't use any other additive than occasionaly a kH buffer.

Thanks for your help.

Sally

 

[lossman]

Another comment/question on running carbon.....the stuff we got is Kent Marine Reef Carbon and they state it's "superior activated carbon" and so should only be used for three days. I plan to put it in a mesh bag in a fast motion area of the sump. Is this carbon different than other carbons? Can I keep this stuff in the tank for a full week with no problems?

Thanks for your help!

Sally

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It sounds like diatoms, but might also be dinoflagellates,. You might search around for pictures of each here at RC and see whei it most resembles.

Do you know if the RO/DI is working correctly? Silica will drive diatoms, and tap water is a big source in many locations.

I am not an expert on carbon, but I think it highly unlikely that it is different than other brands. That warning just sounds impressive, doesn't it. Sort of like a used car salesman warning you to be careful when accelerating because "this baby will really take off!"

IMO, you can run that carbon 24/7 in a mesh bag without problem, but again, I doubt it will help the algae problem much. How much were you planning to use at a time?

Boomer, any comments on that type of carbon?

 

[lossman]

It's diatoms. Found a picture in Julian Sprung's "Algae, A Problem Solver Guide". The book states that silicates cause this, but our silicates are extremely low. Our TDS is 3. I'm going to have my husband do the silicate test on both the topoff water and the newly made up saltwater to see if both of those test as low. What can I do, in the meantime, to prevent this from getting any worse?

Thank you!

 

[lossman]

OK, measured the newly mixed saltwater, the top off tank water and the new tds water. Silicates are way less than 1 mg/L as per what the test tells us it should be. We did a control test on the test kit (as per instructions) and it's working correctly. Now what??

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

During a diatom outbreak, silica will be low just because they are so effective3 at sucking them up. Still, cutting off the silica (wherever it is coming from) is a good way to reduce the diatoms.

Whether ther eis any silica in the tap water, a TDS of 3 ppm suggests that the DI cartridge on the RO/DI is spent and should be replaced.

You might try the silica test on the tap water to see if there is any there. Many water supplies add it.

What brand of silica kit?

 

[lossman]

Test kit we are using is SeaChem. Since we have tested our RO water right from the unit, our top off water in the containers, the freshly mixed salt water and the main tank and all test well below recommended levels....almost non-existant, I think we will just let things go their course and see what happens.

Thanks for the advise.

Sally

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

OK, good luck and let us know what happens.

 

[Boomer]

Boomer, any comments on that type of carbon?


Oh yes

Kent Marine Reef Carbon and they state it's "superior activated carbon" and so should only be used for three days. I plan to put it in a mesh bag in a fast motion area of the sump. Is this carbon different than other carbons? Can I keep this stuff in the tank for a full week with no problems?


:rollface: :rollface: :rollface:

Yah right, it is just a type of GAC, there is nothing "superior" about it, other than hogwash.


Contains the finest pelletized activated bituminous coal based carbon

This is a VPC (Vapor Phase Carbon) and not a LPC (Liquid Phase Carbon) :lol: So the word "superior" should be replace with inferior.

pelletized activated bituminous coal based carbon

and the they say

will not clog easily like small granular or pelleted carbons.

How can it be a pellet carbon and not a pellet carbon at the same time :mad2:

Less than .2% ash

More BS. He has had this same stuff for years. There is not such thing as a GAC with a .2 % ash. It is a half-truth. They are giving water-soluble ash. The carbon raw material, ash generally varies between 2-20 weight percent in commercial GACs, which this is. A portion of total ash may be water-soluble . That is not telling all, giving only water-soluble ash, as often they both are given on GAC data sheets.



A week, yes or 2 weeks or 3 weeks if you like. I would suggest to remove it every 2 weeks and beat on it with your fist in the bag, rinse and put back in. Then change it in 2 more weeks or if you want to the same every 2 weeks and replace in 2 months.

 

[lossman]

LOL, thanks so much, Boomer. I'm putting the carbon in the sump tonight. Let's see how fantastic my tank looks tomorrow!!!

 

[HowardW]

I was told by someone at Seachem that carbon CAN be used in both fish only tanks as well as reef setups, however, carbon is very indiscriminate and pulls a lot of stuff out of the water. He recommended their Purigen for reef tanks as it is far more selective and won't remove much of the beneficial 'stuff' that belongs in the reef setup. He also said that all carbons will leach phosphate into the water (bad) however their Matrix Carbon releases far less than most others.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

He recommended their Purigen for reef tanks as it is far more selective and won't remove much of the beneficial 'stuff' that belongs in the reef setup.

Sounds like marketing hype to me. I'm not even sure which things in seawater one would label beneficial, since it nearly always depends on concentration.

 

[lossman]

Randy, we were recently told that even though carbon removes trace elements from the water, that you are generally adding back a lot of that with your feedings and regular "dosing" regimes. Is this correct? Do we really need to worry about carbon removing trace elements?

Thanks,

Sally

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, that is correct that I do not worry about carbon removing trace elements. I use carbon and I only add foods, iron, and silica, and do water changes (1% daily). FWIW, I just dumped out about 30 wet pounds of Caulerpa racemosa and Chaetomorpha yesterday. I'm sure that the macroalgae exports far more of many trace elements than the carbon that I use.

 

[JustAClownFish]

Sorry for diggin' this old thread up but I'm currently running carbon and my water looks so clear I wonder if it's healthy to run it 24/7.

@Randy

Have you ever noticed something negative on your corals such as loss of coloration? I heard that others had problems with bleaching or dull corals when they were using carbon 24/7. I don't see why though. Sounds like they had other stuff going on and just put it on the carbon.

 

[bif24701]

Sorry for diggin' this old thread up but I'm currently running carbon and my water looks so clear I wonder if it's healthy to run it 24/7.

@Randy

Have you ever noticed something negative on your corals such as loss of coloration? I heard that others had problems with bleaching or dull corals when they were using carbon 24/7. I don't see why though. Sounds like they had other stuff going on and just put it on the carbon.

It is possible to over carbon by using too much and changing it too often. Keeping in the system 24/7 is not a problem. Just use just enough to filter the water and no more. Don't change it every day maybe every two weeks at most. After a week I take my carbon off line and wait another week to swap out carbon.


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[bertoni]

Carbon should be safe to run in reasonable quantities. I agree with changing it at most every two weeks. Each system is different, though. If your system has an ATS that produces a lot of organics in the water column, more carbon changed more frequently might be a good idea. After one month, the best guess is that the carbon will be coated with bacteria, and not capable of doing any filtration itself, so I'd say that's the upper limit.

 

[Dan_P]

Carbon can last months. Here is information on organic levels while using about a cup per 100 gallons. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1943092.