Carbon Filter And Ammonia

[hakova]

Hi there,

Please excuse my ignorance but I just set up my tank and want to start fishless cycling by the method described in the beginners resource center. However, I couldn't resist the temptation to use the active carbon pad that came with the canister filter. Now I am not sure whether this pad will adsorb the ammonia that I will add to start the cycling process. Do you think I should take it out now, rather than ~2 weeks?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

 

[mancin]

The carbon shouldn't have any impact on the ammonia. Typically carbon is used to remove medicine from the water after treatment is complete. From what I've read, the carbon doesn't stay 'active' for very long, but the pad itself will still house beneficial bacteria over time. That being said, you could probably put other media in there instead of the carbon. Are you able to get mature media by chance to help the fishless cycle along?

 

[hakova]

Thank you mancin for the quick reply, I will start adding ammonia then. I intend to remove the carbon pad in a couple of weeks, before it gets completely saturated.

... Are you able to get mature media by chance to help the fishless cycle along?

Well, I haven't contacted anybody in VA, since the ones who volunteered in this forum are all far from where I live. I don't want to pay a fortune for shipping. Unfortunately I don't have any friends with an established aquarium, either.

 

[backtotropical]

I'd recommend removing the carbon now. If you remove it in 2 weeks time, you will be removing 2 weeks worth of bacteria with it. It is best to replace it with biological media now and you won't be setting the cycle back in 2 weeks time.

It really won't do anything to help your tank just now anyway, unless you have some sort of dangerous chemical in your water.

Cheers

BTT

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with BTT, better to remove and replace this now since you're not really started yet. Your post suggests you are possibly expecting the fishless cycling process to take 2 weeks, but in practice we usually find its more like 2 months by the way. That time may seem long now but often it hardly seems enough once the new member becomes engaged in all the ins and outs of figuring out which fish will go with which other fish and which will not and all sorts of questions like that to be figured out!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[hakova]

Thanks guys for all the responses. I have an Eheim Ecco canister filter with the biospheres installed in addition to the carbon filter at this time. I guess I will remove it tonight in compliance with the consensus here . I wonder if I can re-use it in future, say to clean a medicine etc. now that it is only used for 24 hours.

I have been reading about cycling a lot. I am aware that it might take a couple of months. I guess I will just keep doing my homework and wait.

 

[waterdrop]

Thanks guys for all the responses. I have an Eheim Ecco canister filter with the biospheres installed in addition to the carbon filter at this time. I guess I will remove it tonight in compliance with the consensus here . I wonder if I can re-use it in future, say to clean a medicine etc. now that it is only used for 24 hours.

I have been reading about cycling a lot. I am aware that it might take a couple of months. I guess I will just keep doing my homework and wait.

You're doing great! Yes, definately, carbon dries out nicely and stores well. It'll still be good for its 3-day use some time in the future when you need it. The way you use carbon is usually to have a supply that's a fair bit larger than what your filter holds. You put it in and let it run for 3 days, then you change it out, throwing away the used carbon and putting in another batch. You do several 3-day runs and then hopefully its accomplished its goal, which is to remove medications or yellow tannins from bogwood or sometimes strange organic smells of unknown origin. Those are the 3 most common uses, but it can be a good media to try in other unusual cases too! People just get confused and run it as an everyday thing, which is pretty hopeless but the LFS model encourages that, to sell carbon.

Eheim makes a nice sort of ceramic gravel you could replace it with or there's Seachem Matrix which I believe is perhaps a sintered glass biomedia, can't remember. Sponges would be fine too, just a little harder to match the flow allowance.. you ideally want it to be similar to what the Ecco designer had in mind and a gravelish type media is obviously a little easier match to the carbon being taken out. Of course, maybe there are other Ecco media packs available...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[hakova]

Thanks waterdrop for the detailed explanation about the uses of carbon. I was looking for something like this. Had I known this yesterday, I would have never put it in at the first place.