what do you guys think of carbon filters
- Thread starter JDC
- Start date
I do you carbon in my filteres and I've never noticed them doing any harm, but maybe someone knows something I dont, there are some myths though about carbon, for instance some people will go to major effort removing the carbon out of the filter prior to using medications etc, I've found this to be unneccessary, even if the carbon is filtering this out it'd be a fraction of the amount and the medication is still effective. However I do know that carbon is generally only good for about 2 weeks, so if you want to keep usin it then replacing it fornightly would seem to bve in order.
Personally speaking, i do think it makes water look better, but it can be annoynig to keep changing, I suppose thats the trade off.
Personally speaking, i do think it makes water look better, but it can be annoynig to keep changing, I suppose thats the trade off.
Carbon is effective, but to keep it effective you would need to change it every week at minimum, probably more foten than that. It is unneeded in a healthy tank unless you need to remove something specific like wood tannins. I keep some carbon on hand in case I use meds and want to remove them after a treatment is done, though I normally use salt and heated water for most treatments. Carbon is expensive and not needed unless you really want it. I, and many other here, have used nothing but sponges in our filters for a very long time. My current sponges are at least 2-3 years old. I rinse them out during water changes with the old tank water.
Its not very useful normaly. But if you are tyring to revmove some kind of chemical, or colour from your water it is uselfull. The only problem is that it only stays active for about 1 week. After this it is totaly useless.
Failing to remove carbon prior to medicating will seriously dilute if not totally remove the meds and prevent them from doing their job.
I also only use carbon if I have an issue in my tank, I have replaced the carbon with a second sponge so am now running two sponges as opposed to one sponge and one carbon insert in all my tanks. I would never tell anybody not to use the carbon if they wanted to though. As it does help keep your tank in pretty good shape while it is active. Which for me personally has been in general anywhere from 2-4 weeks.
And a popular myth you may come across is that after carbon becomes un active, it will leach out all the stuff it took in. This will not happen, it will take a science lab to do this.
So is it worth it to use carbon? I buy the HBH carbon pads (the black filter pads that you cut out that have carbon impregnated into the pad). Do those lose effectiveness within a week?
So, if a person uses those cartridges that have the carbon within them, I have them on my 10g tanks. (Dynaflo1 and a Regent) and you haven't changed the cartridge in a month or more...would it be okay to medicate if you had to without removing the carbon? When I had to use meds I just cut the sponge part and emptied the carbon out, but was that really necessary?
Boohoo said:
You can mod those things eaisly. Cut all the floss off from the frame, and cut some floss from www.bigalsonline.com to fit them frame. Then use two elastic bands (yes, they are fish safe) to hold it in place.