Carbon in trickle filter?

Spammie33

Spammie33

Active Member
How much carbon should I use in my 100 gallon FOWLR aquarium? I using a trickle filter, do I just lay the pellets on top of the filter pad? ...And the same for the phosphates? Thanks!
 
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saltfan

Well-Known Member
No put them in a filter sock. the package should give a recommended amount. But alot I beleive depends on the bio load.
 
brackish10

brackish10

Member
this is A bit disturbing... other than chemo pure, isthere something that i can use with the same purification effect in my 5g fluval spec?
 
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
nivek said:
Prolonged use of carbon can lead to hole in the head disease on fish.

http://www.ecosystemaquarium.com/research-development/marine/activatedcarbon/
Click to expand...

It must be pointed out that the article pointed to is from a very questionable source, EcoSystem. They are the people that push Miracle Mud. Take the article about carbon with more than "a few grains of salt". It's quite well know that plenty of people have used carbon full time for many years with out any of the ill effects described in the article, such as hole in the head disease.

Yes it has been show that carbon may be a factor in the disease, but this seems to be related to cases where either the carbon was not properly rinsed out first, or low quality carbon was used.
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
DaveK said:
It must be pointed out that the article pointed to is from a very questionable source, EcoSystem. They are the people that push Miracle Mud. Take the article about carbon with more than "a few grains of salt". It's quite well know that plenty of people have used carbon full time for many years with out any of the ill effects described in the article, such as hole in the head disease.

Yes it has been show that carbon may be a factor in the disease, but this seems to be related to cases where either the carbon was not properly rinsed out first, or low quality carbon was used.
Click to expand...

While this might be the case, there are some others that did research on this. For example J.F Hemdal started his research back in 1989 when they first thought that activated carbon might have an impact on fish health.
In his study it was very clear that activated carbon does cause HLLE, specially in species like surgeonfish (over 3-4%).

It's also true that many people use activated carbon, but I'm fairly sure that those few that experienced it reported it, but nobody did ever look into the direction of carbon being the culprit, simply cause it's not that wide spread of a problem.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use it, cause activated carbon can have great effect. However one shouldn't ignore possible side effects imo. fish health > clear water for me, even if it's a small 3% chance. There are other ways to clear water in this hobby for me :>

Again, this is simply my opinion, not a statement that activated carbon shouldn't be used. The great thing about this hobby is that there isn't 1 road to achieving what you want :D
 
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