CARBON ADVICE. NEED. MMMMMM.

[est 032909]

Good Morning.

I am absolutely terrified of removing carbon from any of my systems.

I did not get into this hobby cold. I transitioned into fish keeping through water turtles back in the 90's.

started with a 10 gallon, then a 20 gallon, then a 100 gallon pond. always had crystal clear water.

fast forward 15 years and now into fish. the debate would on carbon would appear to be split into two. good and bad. well i use it and replace every 6 months on a staggered basis not to disrupt levels of bb in too great of a sway.

BUT, i would appear to have a worm problem in a smaller tank and need to med. well i am very hesitant to pull out the carbon as well as all the bacteria.

bite the bullet and pull it all out? monitor with water changes to equalize?

leave it out?

med with it in?

add it only to remove meds?

any advice? thanks.

 

[tableau]

I do not completelty understand what is you dilemna. Normaly, your filtration system should have enough biomedia, so that, even if you remove the carbon from it, there would still be enough bacteria left.

 

[brich999]

Carbon should only be used to remove mess, but it also helps to get rid of a smelly tank, but you have other issues if your water is smelly. I'm not a fan of carbon, I think it's pointless unless you a trying to get mess out, and if you are removing medication, you want fresh new stuff in there and toss it out the next day

 

[est 032909]

there would be yes, but always a sway.

and this is in reference to my smaller tank of 30 gallons.

and i did remove my carbon from my 75 gallon with sump. had 2 filter bags with carbon and ammonia resin. took those out and lost 1/2 my stock about 6 juvi sa/ca/cichlids. the tank has an fx5 with >$100 in biomax.

 

[Water]

Carbon is only useful in removing medication IMO. Leaving it in for no reason makes me believe that the Activated Carbon is unnecessarily removing stuff from the water. I stopped using that 8 years ago. Even when I dose a tank with medication and want to remove the medication, I still do 100% water changes.

 

[tableau]

there would be yes, but always a sway.

and this is in reference to my smaller tank of 30 gallons.

and i did remove my carbon from my 75 gallon with sump. had 2 filter bags with carbon and ammonia resin. took those out and lost 1/2 my stock about 6 juvi sa/ca/cichlids. the tank has an fx5 with >$100 in biomax.

The problem was not the carbon,but the ammonia removal resin. By using it, you removed all ammonia needed by the bacteria to exist; your tank was not cycled and the resin was artificialy removing ammonia. The 100$ + biomax was completely useless since no bacterias could grow on it.

 

[est 032909]

The problem was not the carbon,but the ammonia removal resin. By using it, you removed all ammonia needed by the bacteria to exist; your tank was not cycled and the resin was artificialy removing ammonia. The 100$ + biomax was completely useless since no bacterias could grow on it.

mmmmm....that's some CSI sh**! makes sense. thanks.

 

[dogofwar]

I seldom use carbon...and when I do it's for a purpose (e.g. remove meds or color in water) and temporarily...

If your carbon is serving as biomedia, it's lost its usefullness as carbon and might as well be gravel.

Matt