Active Carbon... Pro's and Con's!

[moy]

From what i know its very beneficial to have Active Carbon in your mechanical filter, becaue its gets rid of waste and ordors ( and a few of other things) from the water. But i've read from someone on the board that its not a good idea to have carbon.
Whats the catch?? Why wouldn't it be good to have carbon in a filter??
Can someone please shed light on the subject.!

 

[up north hermit]

Activated carbon very quickly looses its positive adsorption qualities. After that, it simply becomes a "trap" for debris, both the visible and the invisible, thus it becomes more detrimental to the tank than beneficial.
Hard core reefers use carbon only sparingly, to polish the water and take out the slightly yellowish tint that can develope, say maybe once a month.
Some moderates use it a few days a month.
Middle of the roaders, like myself, use it occasionaly and make sure that it is FRESH and from a very good source. And keep it pristine.
HTH
Hermit

 

[moy]

So how often should you change the Carbon in your filter?? What do you recommend??

 

[up north hermit]

I can not advise you as I have no information on your tank.
I can only tell you that I put a little carbon in an outside power filter I have and run it about 3 days every two weeks on my reef tank.
But reef tanks are different than FO tanks in many ways. So, if you have FO tanks you could run the carbon 24/7 with no detrimental effects, EXCEPT if you do not have good cleaning habits. I would still recommend rinsing it every two weeks or so.
Personally I use Matrix Carbon, by SeaChem. Stay away from cheap carbons. Most of them will leach phosphates back into your tank
HTH
Hermit
[ January 01, 2002: Message edited by: Up North Hermit ]

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

My local saltwater distributor guru (two guys that have been in the business for over 20 years) told me that if you plan to use carbon use it for about one day a week and replace the carbon every month. Any omre than that and you could be filtering all the good things in your tank.

 

[moy]

What do you do in my situation, i have a Reef/Fish tank. In my 46 gallon i have 6 fish with about 8-10 pieces of coral?
What do i do about the carbon in this case??

 

[up north hermit]

If it were me, I would take the middle of the road approach.
Run some good quality carbon a few days a week, twice a month.
I think you stated you have a Wisper Filter? I would ditch all the media that comes with that, get a "media bag", put the carbon in the bag and drop it in (the otherwise empty) filter. When finished, you can keep running the filter empty for extra water movement across the top of the tank.
FWIW
HTH
Hermit

 

[moy]

Thanks for the avise AMERICA WOMEN!!