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Does the carbon inside your filter remove nutrients from the water?

2K views 9 replies 9 participants last post by  discuspaul 
#1 ·
Does the carbon inside your filter remove nutrients from the water?
 
#2 ·
Yes, it does. But only for a couple of weeks, when it becomes so clogged with nutrients that it can collect no more. Then it is essentially reduced to being decent biological filtration.

Generally we only use carbon in the filter to remove (recently used) medications. It serves no other positive purpose in a well planted tank.
 
#7 ·
I thought activated carbon did not have a great affinity for most of the salts we use when we dose dry ferts or dose them wet.
I thought it (AC) could remove the chelated fertilizer (mostly iron). It would probably remove any fertilizer that is in some sort of organic compound.
But, as noted above it gets full of other things pretty fast and stops removing anything.
 
#8 ·
Pretty much agree with all the comments above.
Using carbon seems to be a reasonable clarifyer for a short period of time, and does remove unwanted meds after a treatment, but other than that, it seems quite suspect for doing any good after a while, perhaps even leaching unwanted elements back into the tank in time. I've avoided it for many years.

After much lengthy trial over the years, I much prefer Purigen, which does a great job on a long term basis at removing impurities, clarifying, polishing, and purifying.
 
#10 ·
You can buy Purigen in it's own fine mesh bag (100 ml, I believe), or you can get the Purigen particles loose in a 250 ml jar, and bag it yourself in a suitable sized fine mesh bag, to more or less fit your filter placement.

The Purigen beads are very tiny though - so be careful you have a fine enough mesh bag to contain the particles, or double-bag so they don't escape. It can make a bit of a mess in your tank if they do.
You can get 2 sizes of suitable bags at most PetSmart stores (but double-bag).
Or you can buy different-sized Organza bags at gift shops/dollar stores, etc.
Or you can use doubled-up nylon stocking material.
 
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