Activated carbon opinions please.

[michael]

Do most of you guys use it or not? I have seen HITH in my aros before and I've heard that they can be stressed by carbon. There would be no problems totally removing my carbon in my tank, right? Unless removing meds I know. Any imput is appreciated

 

[DeLgAdO]

Do most of you guys use it or not? I have seen HITH in my aros before and I've heard that they can be stressed by carbon. There would be no problems totally removing my carbon in my tank, right? Unless removing meds I know. Any imput is appreciated

arowana dont get HITH disease

your confusing it with a condition called "head rot"

This is a very unique syndrome. it is also more common in younger arowanas. In this syndrome, the head of the fish starts to get oedematous(swollen) followed by a layer peeling off from the skin, starting from the front of the head and moving backward.

Activated carbon is believe to be the cause due to its close association with the syndrome. It is thought that activated carbon removed vital element in the water and hence disallow the head tissue to form normally. Other hypothesis around include irriation by the microscopic carbon particle deposite on the head. Healing is usually complete and occur withing days when carbon is removed. Zeolite product could cause similar problem too but less severe and less common. Larger arowana are less sensitive Head-rot Syndrome.

i dont use carbon

i use a resin called chemi-pure

works wonders on my tank and aro

 

[rumblesushi]

michael - the whole carbon thing is, you need to remove it before it starts to leach **** back into the tank. Like a week or so. Failure to do this is going to have negative effects.

Is your HITH/headrot situation better now?

I would get rid of the carbon completely. Use polyfilter, UV sterilisers, and anything else to polish the water that isn't as dangerous as carbon.

 

[gomezladdams]

Stopped using it heard just as much neg as pos about it.If you do regular large waterchanges it seves no useful purpose unless your water is poison

 

[HarleyK]

Howdy,

The only true use for carbon in aquarium filtration is to remove medications. Some use it to remove the tea color from driftwood. I personally never used it for the latter. As DeLgAdO said, it removes nutrients for fish, but also for plants. I have no clue who came up with regular carbon filtration for aquaria ... but it was not a bright idea.

HarleyK

 

[Pangong_ilong]

I agree. Never used carbon. If my fish are sick, in w/ the hospital tank.

 

[Iann]

Hi all, i'm running a external filter on my tank, it came with three bags of carbon and three bage of a white stone disk things. I added the carbon to my filter when i set it up and have been running it for three months. Would it be better to remove the carbon from the filter? And should i leave the white disks in?
It's a Fluval 304 and i'm using the filter media that comes with it, has anyone else used the same filter.

 

[Princley]

i use to run my Tap water in carbon b4 putting it my tanks but thats it .. i almost never use it in the tank itself

 

[Sunpoe]

I use to run carbon all the time until I started to notice problems with my fish, more specificly my discus. The discus would always seem to have ich when I used the carbon and they showed signs of lateral line disease . After I discontinued the carbon all went back to normal but as soon as I started it back up the problems would start again. On some fish I don't notice any problems but because of the discus episode I do not use it any more.

 

[guppy]

Hi all, i'm running a external filter on my tank, it came with three bags of carbon and three bage of a white stone disk things. I added the carbon to my filter when i set it up and have been running it for three months. Would it be better to remove the carbon from the filter? And should i leave the white disks in?
It's a Fluval 304 and i'm using the filter media that comes with it, has anyone else used the same filter.

Replace the carbon with more biomedia. That is the disks but you can even use broken terracotta or lava rock. it give more area for your bacterial colony and increases biofiltration.