So who offers the best quality carbon for aquaria use, or more specifically the best quality and price? I'm going through a pile of it every week and probably need to use more.
I recently started testing nitrates because even with two and three 25%-33% water changes a week my 75g w/ an 18" plec, (2) 6" goldfish & (3) little cory's was staying cloudy. (The tank previously had even more fish for a short time while additional tanks were being readied)
Here's the current effort: Emperor 400 H.O.B. filter, an Emperor 280 H.O.B. filter, a dbl. ATI #5 air driven sponge filter, a power head w/ an ATI Filtermax #3 sponge pre-filter, Mini jet pump hooked to a PhosBan reactor filled w/ carbon turning over the tank water twice an hour and a HOT Magnum filled w/ carbon and wrapped in a 100 micron prefilter. The Emperor's have media bags in each chamber that I alternate between ammo chips and carbon with each water change. The filter pads are changed every three weeks.
The water tested O.K. (ph=7.0 / ammo=0 / nitrites=0-.25). Nitrates were initially running about 40 ppm (test kit said this was exceptable) but that's when I started running the Phosban Reactor and the Magnum filled with carbon to try and reduce it (thinking that the nitrate reading was a reflection of dissolved solids that were the cause of the cloudiness..
After a couple of days it dropped to <5.0 ppm but never quite gets to zero and stays there. This tank gets tested every day.
I hadn't thought about it 'till now but plec had smacked into the driftwood one day while I was watching him and got a small cut on his head. I pulled all of the carbon, treated with Melafix for three days 'till he healed and then replaced all of the carbon. I think that that may have been about the time that the persistent cloudiness developed but I don't see the connection.
I had
assumed that the tank was just overstocked and that I could manage the load with filtration and water changes until a more appropriately sized tank could be prepared.
Right now I'm looking at some alternatives. I have a 120g. reef ready for the plec but I'm trying to do a fishless cycling on it and it won't be ready for a while yet. In the mean time I was going to sell a kidney and buy one of the new Eheim electronic canister filters for the 75, remove the two gold fish and see how that helps.
I've also reduced the tank temp to 72, from 76, to try and slow everybody's metabolism down a bit, and try to stick with food that has as little junk in it as possible. There's one big piece of well seasoned driftwood for plec and a couple of large clusters of hornwort and some anacharis.
The tank also has 150 watts of 6,500K lighting and about 8-10 liters/min. of aeration.
If the canister doesn't do it I believe radiation is next on the menu.
You'll have to excuse me now...I just tried taking pictures w/ my crap cell phone for the last time. I'm off to buy mysel...,er a , my wife a Xmas gift. I'm thinkin' she wants a new digital camera...
Hope she likes it!