Carbon

[willroo]

Hello all


The filter in my tank has a bag with carbon inside, what is the purpose of the carbon and do i really need it.

What can i put in its place.


Thanks Will

 

[Miss Wiggle]

carbon is great for removing medications and pollutants from your tank water. however it doesn't last very long and when it can suck anything else up it releases everything back into the water s it's no good for long term filtration.

you should always have some in your house, and if you ever have to medicate the tank use it afterwards for 24 hrs then remove it and throw it away.

for everyday filtration you can replace it with just about any filter media: sponges, floss, bioballs, chemical filtration..... it depends what you already have in the filter and what you have room for.

 

[willroo]

The filter has a compartment with what looks like ceramic rings.

The other compartment has a sponge around the carbon.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

The filter has a compartment with what looks like ceramic rings.

The other compartment has a sponge around the carbon.

i'd replace the spnge/carbon combo with a proper sponge. don't worry about buying any particular make/brand etc, just get any filter sponge and cut it down to fit

 

[willroo]

Thanks miss Wiggle

Will i need to keep some of the old sponge in and replace later to keep the good bacteria

 

[Dan-25]

HI

not to pinch your thread but i too have a filter that has a compartment with balls in then the middle compartment has sponge wrapped around a bag of carbon then a nother compartment with balls in, what should i do, just buy a filter sponge and put it in ?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Thanks miss Wiggle

Will i need to keep some of the old sponge in and replace later to keep the good bacteria

yes if the filters already in use never change more than half at a time, take out the carbon, wedge some new sponge in with the old and that'll do you.

HI

not to pinch your thread but i too have a filter that has a compartment with balls in then the middle compartment has sponge wrapped around a bag of carbon then a nother compartment with balls in, what should i do, just buy a filter sponge and put it in ?

that's what I'd do, as mentioned above be careful when replacing media so you don't throw away your filter bacteria

 

[andywg]

When you take medicine do you flush your system to get it out of your body? Nope. I don't know why we have this idea that we must use carbon to get the medicine out of the water. A couple of extra water changes will reduce the medicine to very low levels.

I cannot see any reason why anyone should have to keep carbon at all.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

When you take medicine do you flush your system to get it out of your body? Nope. I don't know why we have this idea that we must use carbon to get the medicine out of the water. A couple of extra water changes will reduce the medicine to very low levels.

I cannot see any reason why anyone should have to keep carbon at all.

i wouldn't say you must use it, however i see no reason why you shouldn't if you want to. yes some decent water changes will also sort it.

and i don't think that's really an appropriate comparison, when we take medications they go straight into our body, they're not injected into the atmosphere around us for us to take in gradually.

also when you treat a tank you may only have 1 sick fish in it, and exposure to medications unnescesarily for the healthy fish can lead to them building up a resistance and then it could be harder for you to treat diseases in the future. obviously using a hospital tank and just treating ill fish will help this but a lot of people don't have hospital tanks and will treat they're whole tanks.

So if you do add medications i think it's important to remove them as soon as they are no longer needed, carbon can help with this so I see no problem with encouraging people to use it.

 

[bennett418]

doesnt it also get rid of tanine?

 

[andywg]

i wouldn't say you must use it, however i see no reason why you shouldn't if you want to. yes some decent water changes will also sort it.

and i don't think that's really an appropriate comparison, when we take medications they go straight into our body, they're not injected into the atmosphere around us for us to take in gradually.

also when you treat a tank you may only have 1 sick fish in it, and exposure to medications unnescesarily for the healthy fish can lead to them building up a resistance and then it could be harder for you to treat diseases in the future. obviously using a hospital tank and just treating ill fish will help this but a lot of people don't have hospital tanks and will treat they're whole tanks.

So if you do add medications i think it's important to remove them as soon as they are no longer needed, carbon can help with this so I see no problem with encouraging people to use it.

Encourage is one thing, saying that "you should always have some in your house" is a little different.

A better way to remove meds than carbon would be water changes. why remove meds once they are no longer needed? If you have defeated the problem correctly (say you have eradicated ich from the tank) then there is nothing less to gain an immunity to the medicine. It doesn't matter if a fish becomes immune to ich medicine as the fish is not actually the target of the treatment.

Just what are the healthy fish going to build a resistance to when using full dose treatment. Immunities are far more likely to build up when using continued low level dosing, not a short stint of tull dosing that fades off through water changes.

Three 50% water changes over a 24 hour period would remove 87.5% of the treatment in the water. I wonder if the carbon would remove that much that quickly?

I repeat my main thrust, there is absolutely no need, or requirement for any aquarist to have a store of carbon. You have (in response) changed your words from saying everyone should have it to people can use it if they want to, and thus my work here is done.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

meh you can quibble over semantics if you like. I don't look through the specific phrasing of every single post I write to see how it would hold up to arguments. sorry if I've not phrased things quite right, spelling and grammer has never been a strong point but I do my best to make sense!

you may treat that bout of disease but if a fish your not treating builds up an immunity, and then you get ich again a year later what do you do?

each to they're own though, if you don't want to use it then don't.

I still think it's a really useful thing to have in the house and always keep some.

Nearly everything posted on this site is opinions, there are very very few absolute dead set rules to fishkeeping, I would think (and hope) most people have enough about them to see that and make they're own minds up and not blindy follow to the word what 1 person does. We all have to find what works for us.

 

[andywg]

you may treat that bout of disease but if a fish your not treating builds up an immunity, and then you get ich again a year later what do you do?

The ich treatment does not treat the fish. The treatment affects the free floating pathogens not the fish. So long as you complete the course of medicine and eradicate the pathogen then there will be nothing in the tank to build up an immunity to the medicine's desired effect. The worst thing that would happen is that the medicine would have less detrimental effect on the fish the next time you need to use it for an ich outbreak.

Nearly everything posted on this site is opinions, there are very very few absolute dead set rules to fishkeeping, I would think (and hope) most people have enough about them to see that and make they're own minds up and not blindy follow to the word what 1 person does. We all have to find what works for us.

And that is why I pointed out that there is no absolute need to carry carbon. The statement as it stood indicated it was something everyone should have when it is, at best, superfluous.

 

[willroo]

sorry to have caused so much conflict

Thanks for the advise everyone