Carbon/Filtration & Fertilizers

Using carbon doesn't hurt, carbon doesn't effectively remove the minerals and nutrients required by plants. However, the benefits of carbon doesn't last long, it basically become a biological filter media after a week or two so many people don't use it on a daily basis.

Planted tanks don't rely on biological filtration as much because the plants will act as the biological filtration. So fill up on sponges and filter floss to polish the water.