carbon and plants

C

cawaltons

AC Members
Jan 8, 2005
70
0
0
I was reading a thread in the newbie forum that said something about you can't use carbon if you have live plants.

I have an Aquarium Systems Millenium Mechanichem Cartridge filter system. It has activated carbon in the filters.

(I just got a 24" Power Compact 65W flourescent for my 23 gallon tank and want to get some more plants once things settle down.)
 
Well, activated carbon is really good at chemical filtration. With live plants, a lot of us use chemical additives, be it fertilizers or Flourish Excel for carbon usable by plants, so having something that can remove those is counter productive, to say the least. Also, carbon is expensive over time and really not that necessary. It's great if you need to remove meds from a tank or something, but other than that, I won't use it.
 
Isn't carbon ok if you have a heavily loaded fish tank with a medium plant load?
Won't it take care of the extra stuff the plants don't?
 
As Harlock said, carbon cost money. You have to replace it because it loses it's ability to remove chemicals fairly fast. If you've had it for a while, 2+ months, chances are it's used up and won't remove much anymore anyway. I can serve as a medium for beneficial bacteria to grow so if your filter is primarily filled with it (not too common a practice) then throwing it out could have some negative consequences. If it's only a little, you could just pitch it and replace it with another media.
HTH
 
It all depends on what type of filter you have. If it's a Penguin, Emperor or Regent, then a Bio-Wheel would fit on there. If you are using an aquaclear then you could slide in a piece of filter foam.
 
It's old style Top Fin ugf with a tube and a little rectangular carbon cartridge on top. Right now the newest machinery I have is my powerhead and it's about five years old. Never saw or heard of the over the tank filters till about year and a half ago after I started my 10gal up, never saw a reason for the expense either.
 
very interesting!

And good timing. I was about to buy a four pack of filters!

Hmm. I have Millennium external wet/dry multi-filter which uses a cartridge containing two layers of polyester fabric around activated carbon. They don't seem to sell the cartidges without the carbon. Could I just cut some sort of polyester material to use as a filter? I hate to empty out the cartridges each time.

Also, the only thing I've been adding was Tetra Florapride 0-0-3. Was the carbon soaking it up? No wonder my plants we dying -- insufficient light and no fertilzer!

BTW, thanks for the light recommendation! I bought the one you suggested and it's working out nicely so far.
 
You're welcome on the light suggestion! I really like mine too. Just did maintenance and my plants are pearling away. :) I had the sam problem with my filter cartidges. I ripped out the old stuff to get the carbon out, then cleaned the "frame" to get any odd hanging bits off. Then, I purchased some Marineland filter foam from the LFS, cut it to the shape of the frame and used rubberbands to hold it in place. Voila, mechanical filtration without the carbon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom