Should I Use Carbon?

knashash said:

I read somewhere that you should not use carbon in your filter for planted tanks...that it takes valuable nutrients out of the water. Also in a planted tank, is it better to overfilter or under filter. Your thoughts please.

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Just use the search function for activated carbon, you'll get some hits. Recent threads include: this one and this one. Hope they help.

Carbon is pretty much a waste of time in any kind of tank, but in a planted tank its particularly bad for the reason you expressed. As far as filtering is concerned the main thing you want avoid is one that agitates the water surface. To much agitation drives off the CO2 in the water. For this reason the various bio-wheel filters are not recommended. Canister filters are a popular way to go, but they can be a little pricey.