Tropical Fish Forums

Moment · Regulars Joined: 06 Mar 2007

I was wondering if anyone had any experience or information on running a carbon filter on a nano reef with mushroom corals growing in it. Also housed in this tank are anemones. Would this leach trace elements from the water that these animals need? Also if that's the case, would supplementing be enough or would it all get taken by the carbon? So basically will there be more positive or negative effects attained by using a carbon filter.
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FloridaBoy · Moderators Joined: 04 Jul 2004

I have read your post a couple times and I don't understand your question. Please re-phrase.
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Michael L.

I think Moment is asking whether using activated carbon in his/her filter would be beneficial or not.

Is there any specific reason why you want to run carbon in your tank, Moment?
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Moment · Regulars Joined: 06 Mar 2007

Well I basically want to give every advantage to tank inhabitants as possible. I recently upgraded from a 5g nano set up to a 15 gallons set up. So with 15 pounds of live rock doing all the biological filtration I wondered about the additional benefits of chemical filtration since tank is triple the size and now has 92 watts of PC lighting. I know what effect carbon will have but I wonder if it will rob nutrients from mushroom coral.
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art_of_war · Members Joined: 17 Nov 2006

FloridaBoy · Moderators Joined: 04 Jul 2004

Moment · Regulars Joined: 06 Mar 2007

Thanks, I have since decided against regular use of carbon. In addiction to mushrooms, and hairy mushrooms, I now also keep zoas, and one frag I got even had a little Favite on it. All do very well after many months in tank. I now use Kent Marine supplements to provide extra nutrition. All are well. Regime obviously to their liking.
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art_of_war · Members Joined: 17 Nov 2006

MarkLehr · Moderators Joined: 09 Dec 2004 Location: Louisville, KY

I'll throw my 2 cents in. I would absolutely use carbon in this system.

Both protein skimmers and activated carbon remove organics from the water, with protein skimmer removing polar charged molecules and carbon removing mostly non-polar charged molecules. The two are remarkably similar in benefits and compliment each other well. On small systems without skimming, carbon becomes even more useful.

Additionally, the use of carbon keeps the water more clear and allows for better light penetration. Oddly enough, this is one of the reasons many hobbyists say carbon is a bad. Having never used carbon they decided to try it. The water clears, light penetrates further, and corals burn. They then blame a nutrient deficiency! I blame the internet for the circulation of readily available incorrect information related to carbon usage.

Another problem occurs with improper care. If the carbon bag is allowed to become coated with slime and begins to incur detritus buildup, it will become biologically active. At this point phosphate is introduced into the system as a byproduct of water flowing across the detritus. Again, this has caused bad information to circulate correlating carbon to phosphates. It is not the carbon in most cases causing a phosphate increase. The carbon bag just needs to be rinsed frequently, just like a mechanical filter pad.

Like everything else, be sure to utilize carbon correctly. Keep it changed at proper intervals and clean the bag frequently to reduce detritus buildup, preferably with your daily cleaning of the mechanical filter pad.