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Carbon pack in my filter

640 views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  PlantedRich 
#1 ·
Hello,
I have a 55 gallon freshwater fish only aquarium that I will be converting to a low tech planted tank. I have an Aqua-Clear hang-on filter with a carbon pack in it, and I read that I should remove the carbon from my filter when I transition to a planted tank (something about the carbon interfering with the CO2). Is this accurate, and can anyone give me more information about this? I would really appreciate any assistance anyone can provide.
 
#2 ·
The action is correct but the reason may not be so correct. I see no connection between carbon filtering and CO2. But on the other hand many of us do find carbon is not the best way to go and we do remove it. Carbon is kind of like a sponge with tiny little holes where things collect. Works good and we do find it handy to keep on the shelf for special times. Like when we are done with medicine and want to clear it or there is a bad odor or color in the water. Carbon does remove those while other methods may not. The downside of all those tiny little holes its that they become stopped up and need to be changed way too often for most of us. Once we get the tank cycled and the good bacteria working we like to let other media do the job and it doesn't need so much attention.
Messy, sloppy, nuisance and expense except for special uses? I have a box but I don't want to use it.

There may also be a rumor about it removing ferts but that is generally considered bogus.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for that info .That does at least sound much more reliable than reading the info on various internet sites. It probably won't change my own personal use of carbon but it also may make me more aware that it can remove some things we want.
Hard to sort the wheat from the chaff at times.
 
#5 ·
I don't know. I always use the carbon pad at startup. The benefits of a very good organic removal media to me outweighs any possible trace removal. For the first week or two there isn't much in the way of plant uptake and the bio-media is very week. You need organic removal in the way of water changes and carbon is another redundant way to accomplish this.

Also I don't think that study takes into effect that the plants would have already taken up some of the FE based on that time line. Your also dosing 3 times or so a week so I don't think it's really an issue either way.

ADA and Eheim which are two companies marketing heavily to planted tanks both recommend carbon at startup.
 
#8 ·
As I understand chelators, they attach to various cations, like iron and manganese, protecting those from oxygen ions, so the metals don't oxydize making them non-available to plants. So, the iron in a chelated solution is in the form of "big" molecules, which are adsosrbed by activated carbon. Most of the other trace elements are not affected by the chelator. Unfortunately, I'm far from well informed about chelators, so I could be wrong, but that could explain the results of the experiment in burr740's comment.
 
#9 ·
So what I might be feeling is this?
The carbon appears to remove some of the nutrients but it is somewhat vague how much that is a real problem as we often do dose far more than needed. But as we really get the tank up and running, the need for the carbon is not so much to make most of us really want the mess? My thought is that I would save the carbon for some "special" time when I might need it but in most cases I've never found a real time when I did. At this point in time, if I use meds and want to remove them, I'm normally doing enough water changes to do that. Then if there was color that I wanted to remove, I try to find the source (green wood?) and remove that rather than use carbon. For color I might also lean more toward Purigen as well.
Good stuff but not good enough for me to want to put up with using it as it might not be worth the trouble to me. Simple thinking tells me not to put things in that I may then have to figure out how to take them out?
 
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