somebody wanna help me understand why not to use carbon to filter te water in my discus tank

It's not that you can't use it...it won't hurt anything...but it won't help much either. Carbon is only effective for a short period of time and then needs to be replaced. It is expensive and not required for a clean tank. Carbon is often times only used as a filter media when a specific additive to a tank needs to be removed. Such as removing meds after a treatment.

My question is, did someone tell you not to?
I run it in my heavily planted tank and I can tell when it is time to change it. To me it makes a difference. Or maybe it's just my imagination. I clean my tank once weekly, twice if i'm bored. I change my canister filters every month. It usually cost me about $10 to change it out.

dirtydawg10 wrote:

It's not that you can't use it...it won't hurt anything...but it won't help much either. Carbon is only effective for a short period of time and then needs to be replaced. It is expensive and not required for a clean tank. Carbon is often times only used as a filter media when a specific additive to a tank needs to be removed. Such as removing meds after a treatment.

Carbon is good for removing heavy metals and other dissolved minerals that may occur in your water supply, as well as tannins from driftwood and other organic materials that may discolor your water, in addition to the above. As dawg said, it needs to be changed regularly to remain effective. The tendency to remove trace elements isn't always looked on favorably in marine and planted aquaria. Also it will release phosphates, which when present in excess promote the growth of that slimy blue-green algae (actually a cyanobacteria) that nothin' eats.

So there are pros and cons and it comes down to personal preference IMO. As Redneck Woman said, it doesn't hurt anything. I do suggest ya spend the extra cash to get good quality carbon instead of usin' cheap stuff, though. The cheap stuff usually has more dust and a higher phosphate content. It'll save ya some headaches in the end. Oh, and there is no such thing as phosphate-free carbon, so take advertisements of that nature with a grain of sea salt.

WYite

That's real good information WYite! I didn't know there was a difference in carbon. I'm gonna look for a better brand. I usually just get the tub of carbon they sale at Wal-Mart. I do have to rinse it real well before putting it in my filter. It's about $7 a tub and I have to use 1 and 1/4 tubs for my two filters.

Here is an article I wrote on carbon some time ago...I am sure you will have a better understanding and decide if it is suitable for you after reading.

Carbon Article

Nothing eats cyanobacteria? Someone should tell my goldfish that.

its not that i was tolod not too, just that i read not to without an explination in another forum. i cant get a moderator from simply discus to activate my account there but thats where i saw it

saint_felony wrote:

Nothing eats cyanobacteria? Someone should tell my goldfish that.

Don't know 'bout goldfish, but I've never heard or found anything in tropical aquariums that'll eat it...

WYite

I have one comet, that earned the title Survivor. Managed a good two weeks in with the RTC and didn't get eaten.

I tossed it in the feeder guppy tank, (since I'm out of guppies at the moment) that had the purple algae, and the next morning a good bunch of it was gone. I'm not sure if that's normal for goldies, but there ya go.

I don't have experience with Discus, so I can't answer your original question. I'm one of those who doesn't use carbon and have never had a problem due to not using it. I do keep it around just in case the tank gets polluted or I have added meds and need to remove any traces left after treatment.

Good info Wyite. I guess the other reasons I don't use carbon is I don't have issues with heavy metals in my water, I change water frequently enough that tanins aren't an issue and I'm cheap...lol.

I would think (depending on the metals) that a planted tank would prefer not to have the metals removed. If you add ferts that contain heavy metals they will be removed from the water column by the carbon. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong but aren't most micro-nutrients heavy metals? I understand that plants need carbon in order to grow but plants get carbon from CO2 gas not from solid forms of carbon. At least that's how I understand it.

Carbon will take clean water and make it crystal clear but I have a hard time seeing the difference myself.

Humm thats the first time I have heard of not using carbon with discus. I dont use carbon simply because you dont need to it in your filters unless removing meds and I use conditioners that remove heavy metals.

Coconut husk vs. coal based carbon. Neither being all that earth friendly if your of the hybrid car, earth has a fever crowd. The coal based, like SeaChem's Matrix, is more expensive but is typically more active compared to the cheapest stuff out there, that is often already carrying a bunch of junk that it absorbed in being rinsed and processed. Probably does more good as a bio-filter after the first two weeks than anything else. The spherical coal based also flows better and more reliably without trails being cut.

Yeah, the phosphate leeching is quite real, and so is the pain of that damnable blue green bacteria all over my driftwood. Short of a bleach bath and a belt sander I've never found anything that'll get rid of it. Saint, do you rent that goldie out by any chance? RNW I don't know how you've avoided that plague, especially using Wallie world carbon for a long time? Ah...the mysteries of fish keeping.

Many of the micro nutrients, and especially iron, that plants need they will pick up almost immediately upon it coming into contact with it. The plant will take what it needs and the rest is just superfluous, hence the many problems that can evolve with over fertilizing.

As for discus and carbon...Discus Hans, who you'll likely see all over your discus site, is a bud and his fish house, nay... plant, is only a couple of miles from me. He has tens of thousands of dollars of beautiful healthy discus that he imports from Europe and I have never seen carbon used anywhere in his 3,500 sq. ft. of fish tanks and filters. All that he uses is a dechlor (Chloram-X) and a serious bunch of Poret foam in his sumps. No meds, no sick fish, no algae, no dirty tanks...it's just surreal, and totally depressing. You walk thru row after row of all of these beautiful healthy fish and it's just disgusting...I mean that there aren't like a hundred Umpa-Lumpas scurryin' around cleanin' and water changin' every hour of the day. Just him and his helper...it's enough to make me buy a cat.

Anyway, if you want to try something different that does about everything that carbon does but is more benign try SeaChem Purigen. You can regenerate it dozens of times and it sucks up everything from heavy metals to excess organics. Best of all it changes color very noticeably when it's time to recharge and that only takes a soak and some bleach. Doesn't mess with bacteria or trace minerals and I couldn't even begin to explain how or why...but their tech support is the bomb if ya ever have a tough water chemistry issue and you use their products.

I still find carbon great for med removal though.