Activated carbon will lose its effectiveness rather quickly if exposed to lots of debris from the aquarium. Therefore, carbon should be placed after the mechanical filtration media in the filter.
Keep in mind that if you do not keep your tank clean , and debris builds up in the filter, the activated carbon will not be effective. Since activated carbon binds with the compounds it removes, it eventually becomes saturated and can no longer remove additional contaminants. Therefore, it must be regularly replaced—once per month is usually sufficient. Longer intervals between replacement will not harm the tank, but the carbon will gradually lose its ability to remove toxins from the water.
If you see yellowing of the water, or smell an odor in your tank, it's past time to change the activated carbon. Stories about recharging activated carbon abound. Some even give step-by-step instructions, which generally involve baking the carbon in your oven. These stories are myths. The temperature and pressure required to recharge exhausted activated carbon cannot be achieved in your kitchen oven.
It is better to just buy new carbon from the fish store when needing to replace your activated carbon, and be sure to keep unused activated carbon in an airtight container or it may adsorb odors and chemicals from the air. You may have heard that once activated carbon has reached its capacity, it will start leaching some adsorbed materials back into the water. This is not an accurate claim. Although technically possible, de-adsorbing requires changes in water chemistry that simply do not occur in an aquarium.
However, the processes used to create some activated carbon can result in the presence of phosphate in the end product. In this case, it is possible for phosphate already present in the activated carbon to leach into the aquarium water. Some activated carbon products will specifically state if they are phosphate-free. If you are having difficulties with persistently elevated phosphate and can find no other cause, remove the activated carbon entirely.
Perform normal tank maintenance for a couple of months and see if the phosphate remains elevated. If it stays high, the carbon was probably not the reason for your elevated phosphate. In general, using activated carbon in your filter is a good thing, but not a necessity.
If you are testing your water, doing regular partial water changes, and dechlorinating the replacement tap water, you really don't need to use carbon. It is just an additional expense since the carbon needs to be replaced every month. The carbon in a recirculating filter system will also act as a home to the beneficial bacteria that turn ammonia into nitrite and then nitrate. When you change the carbon each month, you are throwing away part of the biofilter, and it will take a while for the new carbon to grow beneficial bacteria on it.
If the carbon media is a significant percentage of your filtration system, you will be losing your biofilter with each replacement. In order for you to make the most of your carbon air filter, you need to ensure that it is filtering all of the air that is in your grow room. This means you need to connect it to a grow room fan and connect ducting to it, then seal it properly using duct clamps.
Place the fan and filter above or near your plants. Next, position the fan so it pulls air from your grow room and exhausts it into the filter. This setup will make sure that all of the molecules in the air will pass through your carbon filter before any air leaves your grow room. When all of the pores, or adsorption sites, in the carbon are full, your carbon filter will no longer be able to trap new molecules.
You can maintain your carbon filter by making sure you clean it regularly — typically once a month. In order to clean your filter, you should take the filter out of your grow room, then shake out any trapped dust and debris. Note: Contrary to popular belief, using water and soap to clean charcoal in a filter can actually have an adverse effect.
Remember that charcoal breaks down, and with the aid of water, you can speed up that erosion. Eventually your carbon filter will get to a point where it is unable to trap as many molecules as it used to.
The answer to that question is a resounding yes! Carbon filters are the best option for keeping the smell from your growing area out of your house and away from your neighbors. That said, these tools do not completely remove the smell from your growing operation, and they will not completely eradicate any dust particles that come from your grow room. Even worse, a lot of times, sprays and gels that attempt to scrub the air actually harm the terpenes and flavor cells of a plant.
The best way to guarantee that your grow room is safely odor-free and keep smells from escaping your growing area, is to use a carbon filter. You can start by finding the right filter for your grow room by clicking here! We have the best customer service and education in the industry. Have questions or need help? Give us a call Since , we've shipped over 1 million orders to happy customers.
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I don't feel that carbon masks any problems but removes them as long as you change it out periodically. I change mine every 3 weeks for fresh.
It absorbs minerals and organic substances, helps to keep your water clear, eliminates foul odors. It will also remove medications and discoloration in the water caused by driftwood for an example. If you're running more than 1 filter on a tank, the carbon does not have to go into every filter only 1.
The other filters you can stuff full of good bio media. I've stopped saying that the Activated Carbon AC leaches what it has collected back into the tank. There are people on both sides of the fence here. Instead I think it's more accurate to say the the AC looses it effectiveness after 3 to 4 weeks and it should be removed and replaced. It has been my experience that Activated Carbon will not remove a bacterial bloom. If your tank smells foul then I highly recommend adding it to your filter immediately.
A water change would probably be a good idea too. Activated Carbon Ken My tanks are crystal clear! My Fluval manual said to take note of the which tray had which media, and to set it up the same as they came out, and unless I mixed them up by accident, the Carbon was in the center tray.
Although I'm not sure if I messed up or if that's how it actually was, maybe I'll look at an unboxing on Youtube to see if it was supposed to be in the middle or the top.
Remember that your bio media for housing beneficial bacteria needed to sustain the nitrogen cycle should be placed where it will remain the most clean. And it would remain the most clean if it was the last media before going back to the tank wouldn't it? So then I should keep it at the top? At least I think. Although I'm not using canister filtration currently, this should do the trick. I really appreciate it. Do you have any recommendations on AC to use?
Or are they pretty much the same? Seachem Purigen that Dolfan mentioned seemed pretty interesting when I read up on it. Hello, I've never used purigen personally, however, some members do use it and with success.
I use Acurel Activated Carbon in the link below: Hard to beat the price for the quantity. Works like a charm. Less dust in the container compared to others that I've used over the years. Wow, that is a lot of AC for the price, I'll be sure to place an order for these before I need to replace my current AC. I appreciate it Ken, Thanks. Glad to help! I believe that for the most part activated carbon is all the same.
I would not recommend putting carbon on one side of basket and another media on the other side. As I think in time, water may tend to flow more toward one side or the other. I would think it would be better to put one layer or bag on top of another layer or bag of different media. More like cake layers. So all the water, in theory, would flow through both layers. As for carbon leaching out, from what I have read I don't think this happens. Carbon works on a molecular bond level.
So to release any toxins collected it would have to break the molecular bond which would take a strong chemical, heat, or other form of energy to break this bond. I think more realistically the carbon is just some black rocks in your filter after it is fully adsorbed. No different then some gravel in your filter. To get full effect, as Ken mentioned, you need to change it out every 3 weeks or so. As for purigen, yes it can be recharged over an over, and does a good job of removing toxins and organics from the water.
If you go the purigen route, I recommend getting 2 bags or twice as much as you need. To recharge purigen you soak it in a bleach solution and then you soak it in water with dechorinator.
Also you can tell when purigen needs to be changed as it gets darker colored, sort of as an indicator. Most users say this is between 1 and 2 months or so. All depends on how "dirty" your water is I guess.
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