Cloudiness, Activated Carbon and Ferts

Harlock

Harlock

Educated Idiot
Dec 15, 2004
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So I have finally got the tank decorations I like and am now in the process of growing and propagating plants to fill in the tank (for photos, check my sig but 56k users give it a couple of minutes). The problem now is that I added driftwood and I am seeing some cloudiness. Just to get it to stay put I kicked up a ton of sand, so that may be part of the cloudiness issue. However, I do know that driftwood will leech a long long time.

So, my question is: would it be possible to use activated carbon in the filters for a few days without taking too much away from my plants? I use Flourish and Flourish Excel for ferts and CO2 respectively. I know the AC will filter it, but how bad will 2-5 days affect my plants? Anyone have hands on experience with this?
 
If you meant using carbon to remove the tannins from the wood, I don't really see the point :)

You'd have to use a lot of carbon just to remove most of the tannins, but on top of this, the tannins that are released are good for most fish anyways. I've decided to live with that when my piece of driftwood started leeching tannins in my 10g :)

However, if you are planning to use carbon to clear up your cloudiness, due to kicked up sand, I doubt it'll do any good. The best bet is to use a small internal filter and fill it up with some filter floss to try to get most of the sand out of the water column. Another option is a diatom filter (you may be able to rent one from your LFS)
 
If your plants are healthy, they can go a few days w/o the ferts provided you don't have 8,000wpg and a tank packed with stem plants. Sure you can use the carbon for a couple days. You may clear the tannins temporarily, but it'll be back, but you know that.
 
beviking said:
If your plants are healthy, they can go a few days w/o the ferts provided you don't have 8,000wpg and a tank packed with stem plants. Sure you can use the carbon for a couple days. You may clear the tannins temporarily, but it'll be back, but you know that.
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Correct, I was thinking mainly to clear things up before shooting the tank. I like to use photos to compare growth. Thanks for the replies.
 
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