Carbon Issue?

[Jennybo]

Last week I purchased a new bag of activated carbon for my 12g Nano Tank. The day after putting it in my tank, the tank got extremely cloudy. At first I thought it was just dirty so I did my cleaning of the bottom and did a partial water change. The next day it was just as cloudy if not more, so I took out all of the filter inserts and rinsed them in a bowl of the tank water and put them back in. I have been doing partial water changes since then and nothing is doing any good. Yesterday I took out the carbon insert and the tank looks like it is clearing up. Could this be my carbon doing this, and if so why?

Since I have a bunch of plants in my tank and they have established good root base and are doing excellent, do I need carbon in the filter or are the plants doing all of the filtration?

Please help me to understand!

 

[meegosh]

Typically you do not need to run any activated carbon unless you are removing tannins (from driftwood) or medications. Even then you should only run the carbon for a max of two weeks before replacing it. I would just ditch the carbon all together and see how it goes.

When I do run carbon I always rinse it off in some tank water before adding it to the filter basket. The carbon has lots of black dust that can get in the water column.

 

[BigJim]

+1

I don't run carbon unless I'm trying to remove something from the water and if I do run it, I rinse it to get the dust out. I've heard debates about carbon actually removing nutrients your plants need.

There are several types of filtering going on:

Mechanical: Usually there's a sponge or mesh that filters out big particles.

Chemical: This is where your carbon falls. You really don't need do this unless you have chemicals you want to filter out.

Biological: This is the most important part of the filtration. The bacteria convert ammonia (fish waste) to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate.

Plants: Your plants absorb ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate from the water, using it as fertilizer. Plants give you a little leeway with needing to do PWCs. I broke the filter (fell off the counter and shattered) for my 29g last week and the tank went filterless for five days. It's medium-heavy on the plants and heavily stocked with fish, but my water parameters were still 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5 nitrate when I got the new filter. I still do my PWCs weekly, but it's nice to know that I have some wiggle room in an emergency.

 

[rkilling1]

I assume that you removed the old carbon when you installed the new stuff?

If so, how long was the old carbon in there for?

 

[Jennybo]

I did remove the old carbon and rinsed the new bag of activated carbon extremely well in tank water. The very next day the water wasn't grayish it looked like someone had poured milk into the tank.

The old carbon has been in the tank for the past month and I had no problems with the water at all.

I did water changes constantly and as soon as the water filtered it became milky again. I have had the carbon out for only a few days but my tank is crystal clear now! I just don't want something to spike and kill my fish without the carbon. It is only a 12g and has 1 water sprite that is from bottom to top of the tank, an undulata that takes up 1/4 of the tank and some narrow leaf chain sword grass in the front that is multiplying like crazy. I am pretty sure the plants will do what is needed, I just wanted to check with people who knew?!

Thanks.

 

[meegosh]

I have been running my two tanks without carbon for years, as I'm sure others have too. It could be that since the old carbon was in there for a while some of your bacteria colony got removed when you replaced it. The cloudy white water is often a sign of a bacterial bloom and will usually go away once the bacteria colony has time to catch up to the bioload.

Monitoring your water parameters and doing water changes will help keep things stable while your bacteria rebuilds (Keep ammonia and nitrites below 0.25ppm).Good luck!

 

[Craigthor]

I have been running my two tanks without carbon for years, as I'm sure others have too. It could be that since the old carbon was in there for a while some of your bacteria colony got removed when you replaced it. The cloudy white water is often a sign of a bacterial bloom and will usually go away once the bacteria colony has time to catch up to the bioload.

Monitoring your water parameters and doing water changes will help keep things stable while your bacteria rebuilds (Keep ammonia and nitrites below 0.25ppm).Good luck!

+1 on this advice. I don't run any carbon or purigen or anything of the sort in my tank. No reason to and its jsut an extra expense.