I made a post about this on my companies facebook page, but I know there are some people that don’t use facebook. Thought it would be wise to share here as well.
A study came out last year that showed many forms of activated carbon used in the hobby can cause head and lateral line in surgeon fish. Now Kent’s carbon has shown to contain significant levels of heavy metals which could be harmful.(unless you run an LFS and prefer to have copper in your water!) Read more under “KENT Marine Reef Carbon Product Advisory” at the link above if you have this type of carbon.
A study came out last year that showed many forms of activated carbon used in the hobby can cause head and lateral line in surgeon fish.
The first system had a 500 gram mesh bag of unwashed lignite carbon added to the sump. The second system had 500 grams of pelletized carbon added. I don’t like that they don’t state the kind or if rinsed for the pelletized carbon.
It looks like it may very well be and issue with carbon dust.
I have and use some carbon, occasionally. I have a gallon of Marineland premium carbon right now. been around for a while. Mostly, I use those little 100 ml. sealed filter bag pouches of PURIGEN in all my tanks. I like them . pretty much the same results as carbon,. but i can clean and regenerate them over and over and over again.
Carbon is an organic mineral extract of coal, or wood or coconut or somethings. the coal , depending on the rock formation it came from, can have a wide variety of minerals, and metal contaminants in it. it all depends on how they bake, and clean the coal to make the carbon. I guess.
But if you still want to use carbon , you can also use a chunk of Poly Pad in your filter . its a resin impregnated filter mesh that will remove heavy metals, phosphates, and other crud. its a good thing to have in the filter. covers a lot of mishaps.
" you can also use a chunk of Poly Pad in your filter . its a resin impregnated filter mesh that will remove heavy metals, phosphates, and other crud. its a good thing to have in the filter. covers a lot of mishaps.
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I completely agree that it wasn’t an all inclusive study and it had massive holes in it. That being said I believe it to be majorly important that activated carbon is well rinsed, and steps are made to make sure it does not end up being ground up by a pump. Many times activated carbon is left to float in the sump in a bag and ends up being sucked up by a skimmer or return pump which can cause significant issues.
I still use activated carbon, but made this post for several reasons. MANY people reach for the cheapest price on the shelf and ignore quality or reputable brands. Quality control could have prevented this. Too many companies use the cheapest materials they can find and do not have quality customer support. The product which was having issues was made a long time ago.
It took years of customer complaints, crashed tanks, and several law suites before Marineland admitted there might be an issue with their heaters.
If you take the moto
Salt is salt
Heaters are heaters
Carbon is carbon
Then you may need to consider and a fish tank is a fish tank regardless if fish are dead or alive.
Petco, petsmart, walmart, and LFS all have the major brands which have been bought out by big companies and cut their materials down to the cheapest possible and outsourced their labor as cheap as possible. Quality LFS will also carry the quality brands.
Big brand names may save you money at the time of purchase, but it may have also cost the job of american, may have helped support the closure of the LFS that helped you find this hobby, and now there is yet another sign that it may cost you the life of your live stock.