The Use Of Carbon, Do You Use It?

[nicklfire]

Curious to see if you guys use activated carbon with your filtration system, i dont use it cause honestly i think after the first 12 hours it does not do much...

Do you guys use it.. or dont you.. and why

 

[mlawson]

No, I takes the chemicals out of the water needed for plant growth apparently.

 

[Castellop123]

...)

 

[Underwurlde]

From what I have seen from many, many posts is that the general concensus is that if you are keeping aquatic plants it's a no-brainer to remove the carbon. Only use it to clear the water (as pointed out above) or to remove meds after treatment.

Andy

 

[nicklfire]

If i remember reading a article way back it takes phosphates out of the water.. which in a planted you want.

 

[afroturf]

I ask the same question to Tom barr he said basically that it can be used buring the in the first few weeks, when it is less important to dose ferts at high levels and then after these few weeks it becomes inactive and become a biological filter media.

Theres also some debate as to if it removes trace elements or not.

 

[vinylman]

No, never needed it. The first thing I did when I switched from an internal filter to external a few months ago was to take out the bag of carbon and add another biofilter sponge in it's place.