Carbon or No Carbon?

I'm new to this, where can I get polyester fiberfill or Cotton batting? Can I use regular cotton from Walmart and put it in one of the trays on my filter? Or, is this cotton harmful for the fish?
 
Carbon in the tank will remove most of the pollutants that you may be adding with your tap water, so it is not really the same as doing more water changes, unless you are using distilled water. RO water may still contain organic polutants, btw. Your tank health depends a lot on the quality of water you're introducing in those WCs.

If you have average (or worse) water quality, you can put the carbon in the tank for a few hours right after a WC, and it should suck out those pollutants or, (I assume the fish'd prefer this) filter the water before adding it to the tank.
 
If I boiled the water I'm putting in the fish tank, let say a day or two before, do you think it will eliminate pollutants in the water and better the quality of the water?
 
Last edited:
masterkaw said:
If I boiled the water I'm putting in the fish tank, let say a day or two before, do you think it will eliminate pollutants in the water and better the quality of the water?
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no.

if you are on city water, the bacteria level is very low (neglegable E.coli per 1000 ml is the standard here in ontario)

the only thing in your tap water will be carbonates, some phosphates (but most of this comes from our fish foods), sometimes nitrates, and sometimes trace heavy metals depending on the distribution system of your area.

of course, most municipalities chlorinate and some use flourides, so this will be in your water too. A good dechorinator will take out chlorine and chloramines. The flouride is in in such a small amount it will not bother your fish.

Carbon can be saturated quickly, but regular weekly cleaning of carbon removes part of the the outer surface of the granular carbon peice as well dirt clogging the micropores,

this allows for new molecules to become bound to the micropores in the carbon surface, as new micropores are exposed.

thus, regular cleaning of carbon extends its lifespan dramatically.

those chemistry buffs will note that it is localized van der walls forces that create the attraction of the pollutant to the carbon micropore surface. It is straight electrostatic attraction that creates the adsorption.
 
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