What Happens When Carbon Goes Bad?

[onidrase]

The carbon that always comes in filter packets, you know

I heard that after a couple weeks it loses its effect. Some sites say it'll begin to turn harmful to fishes.

What do you with the carbon when it goes bad? How do you replace it? Don't you have to run it under water to activate it? How do you activate new carbon in old filter packets without hurting the beneficial bacteria?

Any info at all on this subject is appreciated. Thanks much.

 

[Hunterprey]

As far as I know carbon is not that necessary in your filter. Mainly used to rid of Tannins and medication. If you keep it there for too long it might just leach the medication back to your aquarium.

I dont have carbon in my filter for 2 years now, just Biomax and foams.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I made the mistake of wasting the carbon supplied with my Rio240 in spring 2010, not to mention the first of the APS2000EF filters I started using, in that carbon will only remove bits effectively from the tank water for a few days. The carbon supplied with my second APS2000EF is still sitting in the box unused, waiting for that unwanted time when a whole tank needs treating from a disease epidemic and then needs carbon to remove the medication after the treatment.

Like Hunterprey wrote, it can be use to remove tannins, but given how hard the water is on the south coast I'm glad of its water softening properties.

 

[mattlee]

carbon will not leach things back into your tank. it will however have a time when it stops being productive and just becomes part of your filters bacteria colony if left in for too long. ive had carbon in filters for several months to reduce tannins and they were still effective, it will also help remove any odours.

its not essential in a tank and most keep it just incase they have to treat the tank for something which is a good idea but if its used every day then just change it every couple of months and it will be fine. it does do a job so its not totally useless but it depends if you can be bothered to change it every time. maybe do it when you clean the filter out to make it more easy.

anything thats kept in the filter will eventually start to grow bacteria colonies on it including carbon so just be carefull that its not a huge part of your products in the filter as when changed you may lose a lot of bacteria and get a spike in the water.

if you do decide to use it then wash it well before installing to remove the tiny particles/ dust from the bag