Activated carbon

[Country joe]

How long would you leave a bag of activated carbon in an external filter to help get rid of used medication.

 

[Whitecloudminnowguy09]

I assume you do not run carbon on a normal basis? If you do enough water changes, it should be removed quickly. But for carbon, just give it a week to be safe, and it should be all gone.

 

[Country joe]

Thanks, I thought it may have been a week, but I'd forgot, and your correct I would only use carbon to rid of meds, along with my usual waterchanges.

 

[GaryE]

Generally, people run it a week, as suggested above. I've never seen anyone do an analysis of whether that works - I always do water changes after meds and assume the carbon would just be for cleaning up the leftovers.

 

[Country joe]

Yes Gary, I do weekly waterchanges, I will run the carbon for a week should I continue with my weekly water change that's due tomorrow, or leave till I take out the carbon.

 

[jaylach]

I would say to do your normal water change. Won't bother the carbon and will leave less meds for the carbon to remove.

 

[Country joe]

I would say to do your normal water change. Won't bother the carbon and will leave less meds for the carbon to remove.

Thankyou will do.

 

[GaryE]

After meds, once the problem being treated is gone, I'll triple or quadruple the number of water changes for 2 weeks. I'd probably do six or so partial changes (25-30%) over the 2 weeks. So I'm with @jaylach - go for it.