No Carbon

[stevereade]

Was cleaning my filter today and realised in the compartments on the back of my tank it has the bag of polo looking thing, some floating plastic balls, sponge and pump but no bag of carbon, is this a big deal or not?

 

[Katch]

Carbon only lasts for about 3 days before it needs throwing away and replacing. Generally we keep a few bags of it around for removing medicines after treating a problem and just put it in then.

 

[stevereade]

Cool thanks

 

[Katch]

activated carbon would also pull micro nutrients out of the water and in turn be bad for your plants (just fyi as this is in the plants section)

 

[ian]

carbon is fine for a planted tank, many high tech tanks use carbon. The amount of nutrients removed by carbon is negligable, so its fine for planted tanks.

 

[qwikimpss]

Carbon also works well as a biological medium as it has a fair bit of surface area.

 

[RadaR]

Yeah, activated carbon barely takes out any nutrients. We encourage dosing slightly more than needed anyway to ensure the plants get enough.
I use zeo-carb in my tank. It's a mix of carbon and zeolite. Carbon does reduce some un-wanted materials. It's nothing that a water change cant fix though.

 

[SuperColey1]

Its all been said

I always use carbon in a hi tec tank. Why not? Only works for 24 hours to a week and then its high surface area media.

Even when it is working it is arguable that it takes much if any of the trace out.

AC

 

[stevereade]

Cool, well I'm not gonna buy some now, the tank is well established and doing fine so I'll leave it I think.