Carbon Filters

[Lyn1]

Hi Everybodies , I was reading the posts about the large tank that had been given to someone by an old man and there were a couple of posts stating not to use carbon. Now my question is this........I have a shark filter which runs with a carbon filter................Is this not a good thing?????............Lyn (whom better get off the puter and off to work)

[dogmatix]

Carbon should be replaced monthly or ideal use half and replace fortnightly.

What i have done with sharks is actually broken the lid off the carbon filter (as clean as possible, you will need this later) emptied the carbon and placed a biological sintered glass product in there i.e. ehiem ehfi substrate pro, then put the lid back in place.

Now you have turned your filter into a mechanical/biological filter.

By the way you never clean biological media out except for in tank water also because the filter is so small you should regard your shark sponges as biologicaal and not use tap water on them.

I never use carbon, not even after meds i prefer to do 20% moring and night for about 5 days to remove meds

[Caryl]

There is nothing wrong with using carbon Lyn1 but it is expensive cos you have to change it so often and really not necessary. Most people only use it if they want to remove something quickly from their tanks (like medications)

[Lyn1]

Thanks for the replies funny thing with the carbon filter was no-one told me the first time I treated my fish for whitespot to remove the filter......Couldn't understand why the treatment wasn't working LOL............Sure is a learning curve isn't it.

[Lyn1]

It wasn't until I joined this site that we stopped cleaning the sponge filters under the hose once a week................Cripes do you think it may have played a part in the fact that my ph just wouldn't settle for long and this was over a period of near eight months!!!!!!!

[Ira]

Nah, wouldn't have had anything to do with the PH.

[Joelay]

If you clean the filter out that often, you'll just kill all of the bacteria living in it, especially cleaning it in tap water. I don't think it would have done anything to the PH though, but it would mean your rank needs to start cycling again, each time it was cleaned. Oh well lesson learned.