Activated Carbon

[shasm]

First off, is activated carbon a viable filter media? I think it is but being new to this great hobby what do i know unless i ask. My second question is what brands, is activated carbon activated carbon or are there better brands out there. Now the big one, how often should i change it. I have read to change it monthly and i have read the older it is the better. Any help straitening out this newbie is and will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Aqua Tom]

Activated carbon does not actualy "filter" your water. It absorbes chemicals & dyes from the water. You only really need it to remove medicine (if you have been treating your fish) or stains (tannins from bogwood, peat etc) from your aquarium.

Activated carbon can be bought in bags from your LFS. If you go for branded names then you are just paying for the name.

It only lasts a few weeks after which it can be thrown away & replaced with more carbon or as is more usual & different media.

"The older the better" is rubbish.

Its a good idea to have some handy but not a good idea to have it in your filter all the time as that will rapidly become expensive.

 

[KittyKat]

+1 for above.

You probably read "the older the better" for the filter media; "change it monthly" either about the carbon or some manufacturers are still shameless enough to put that on their products.

Usually carbon is used up anywhere from within a few hours after being added to within a few days.

Personally, I have a bag on hand, but have not used any in over 6 years.

 

[the biffster]

with carbon i only use it to
remove medication after they
have used and tannins after
new bog wood is still leaching
slightly other wise cant see
the point

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with Kat, its great to have on the shelf but rarely used by the majority of experienced aquarists I believe. Medication removal is by far the most common use. Yellow tannin removal is the second most but is a losing battle if the wood leaches a lot. The third most common use is organic odor (different from the fresh soil smell of a working nitrogen cycle) from a dead fish that can't be located or that sort of thing. The fourth use is sometimes that a mesh bag is added to the filter prior to showing off or photographing a show tank but that is mostly for the psychological ease of the aquarist, lol.

As stated by Kat, if there's a chemical job for it to do it is usually through "adsorbing" (molecular charge related, different from "absorption") within a few hours or at most 3 days. After the 3 days it is useless and ready to be tossed in the trash. The fear of it leaching the chemicals back out after 3 days is a misunderstanding and has been properly discussed by bignose in our scientific section. It doesn't really make anything worse for it to sit there until it is trashed.

Another misunderstanding is thinking that it is somehow -only- a chemical media. Most media types perform two or more filtration functions but with a difference in how well they do the functions. Carbon (aka activated charcoal) is tops at chemical filtration but will also perform biological filtration (more poorly) and mechanical filtration (if added in a deep enough bed.) Autotrophic bacteria will populate carbon but not as well as sponges, ceramics, dish-scrubbies and other top performing biomedia. The worst thing about carbon as a biological media is that is crumbles and slowly gets removed from the tank as "dust" particles when substrate siphoning. Its only real proper use is as a chemical media with removal after 3 days to a week.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[raptorrex]

First off, is activated carbon a viable filter media? I think it is but being new to this great hobby what do i know unless i ask. My second question is what brands, is activated carbon activated carbon or are there better brands out there. Now the big one, how often should i change it. I have read to change it monthly and i have read the older it is the better. Any help straitening out this newbie is and will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I think, now, carbon is unnecessary. time was, we needed it just for our fish to survive. that time is long gone. it is very effective at removing meds from your tank. i have used it to polish the water before i take photos. though it is of little use as a media.

now there are some, who use it as an exclusive bio media. but you need to acclimatise your fish to it. indeed its best if the tank was set up to use it from the off.
the suggestion that carbon is better older, does in fact hold water (lol). as it is cooked, to clean it. this causes the granuals to crack, giving more surface area. now there are arguments as to how much you can "clean" used carbon. but hey, arnt there always.

one final thing. Carbon does act as a bio media. though its true it also acts as a "chemical" media. the reason it was first used, was because it has an extremely large surface area. this makes it ideal as a bio media. however as we, now, look after our fish far better. and along with the problems associated with "chemical saturation" and leaching, carbon has little place in the modern aquaria.

 

[shasm]

I am glad I asked. Great info all. Thanks for the feedback.