Activated carbon question - sump related

incase you didnt see it in his forum:

 

henk, i am sure people with phd`s can also make mistakes or even be wrong some of the time, or wouldnt you agree ?

 

Stop trolling George.

Hows about you post some photos of your tank for us to see? Why dont you post your introduction thread while you are at it?

 

Henk will agree that a person with a phd could be wrong. But let's stop finding excuses here. Water is wet. You don't need a phd to proove it. AC leeches back into water... it's proven! Research has proven it. You don't need a phd to prove it over and over again after it's already proven.

+1

 

Zoom, well in your whole year of fish keeping experience, have you ever documented it ? Or maybe just a link to this absolute proof that you are talking about.

Henk i think you are confusing it with the leaching of phosphates when you use cheap bad quality carbon.

And henk i cant seem to find the thread, could you post a link, could also be some usefull info for this thread.

 

Ok... so if you use the ignore list option, I can see that someone has said something, but I can't read what he said. BRILLIANT

 

Oops missed this sorry Zoom.

 

http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_chemical.php

extract from the link above....

"As carbon adsorbs particles, it will at one point in time exhaust. Therefore, the carbon has to be replaced. An indicator of exhausted carbon is a yellowish tint of the water. The carbon should be replaced at this point. This yellow tint is caused by the failure to remove yellowing matter, and a good visual indicator for replacement. The gas exchange still takes place. Once the carbon is exhausted a release of the adsorbed particles back into the water is unlikely, however the carbon will not adsorb any further particles."

Another nice article.

http://www.reeflounge.com/showthread.php?t=29460

 

Carbon placement , Use, and Leaching

howsit:blink1:

I don't see question marks(?), but guess the highlighted section is what's bugging you, right?
Ideally, chemical filtration is after biological.
Carbon is easily clogged - mechanical filtration will go a long way in extending it's useful life. So carbon as last polish on way back to tank is cool! No fear of biological filtration die-back....
Yes, it will maintain clarity for some time, especially if THAT's what you want it for.
Typical, informed, modern aquarium keeping and thinking leans towards a blend of water changes (of Activated Carbon prefiltered water, if possible), and using lower than recommended doses of Activated Carbon as chemical media portion of your INTANK filtration, with a routine of regular replacement .
However, that being said, their are some chemical compounds which we would LIKE to have present, albeit in small amounts for their desirable effects.
Classes of these compounds eg) Humins, tannins, fulvins from peat, bark, wood extracts certain of which are useful would be rapidly adsorbed!
THEN we would say NO! to Activated Carbon:bigsmile:

I've also just seen posts that contend ; AC can leach in an aquarium
There is NO WAY you can easily, or even with some incredulity achieve conditions in an aquarium where you can reverse the adsorption of organics, etc and dump or LEACH those compounds into an aquarium!

You would require, immense energy inputs, heat, dehydration, chemical treatment...in essence ReActivation conditions to cause leaching.

I don't know about you, but howmany people have heard of fishtanks fit to harbour life at Temperatures well above boiling point...

Steamed fish anyone???

 

Altum... good to see you back online again... you been lurking in the background again???

 

http://www.netpets.org/fish/reference/freshref/carbmeth.html

http://www.aqua-fish.net/show.php?h=aquariumcarbon

http://www.hallman.org/filter/gac.html

http://www.aquariumslife.com/saltwater-101/activated-carbon-in-aquarium/

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/filtration/a/aa061098.htm

 

Dolphin, thanks for those reads, they were very informative, and have cleared up a lot of misunderstandings here... and I will admit defeat where due!

From the readings, I can see that AC, depending on the QUALITY OF THE AC will leech back PO4 back into the tank. Some AC will leech very little, some will Leech a lot.

"What is the truth on phosphate leachings? All carbon leaches "some" phosphate. That is its nature. All carbon removes iodine as well so using too much of it will deplete your iodine and will add some PO4 to the tank. The better brands of carbon though leach so little phosphate that once it is diluted in the aquarium the actual levels will be so low that they will be well within the ranges recommended (low PO4 level e.g. around 0.03 ppm). There are no carbons that do not leach any phosphates in the tank. The answer is to use a high quality brand that leaches very very little PO4."
(From http://www.netpets.org/fish/reference/freshref/carbmeth.html)

From what I understand, the carbon adbsorbs certain nutrients, and although it won't release those specific nutrients back into the water, the decomposition of those nutrients will release ammonia back into the water.

"Even though the activated carbon will remove the dissolved wastes from solution, the organic wastes held tightly will still actively decompose releasing more ammonia into the aquarium water. This leads inevitably to the presence of more nitrates that need to be removed through water changes. " (From: http://www.aqua-fish.net/show.php?h=aquariumcarbon)

So I will admit that from that perspective that the Carbon will NOT release back what it absorbed, as I previously stated with such conviction. I will however, NOT accept the statement the "leeching does NOT occur," as the links provided by Dolphin are pretty clear on that subject.

With this in mind, I would STILL ADVISE ANYONE that if you are going to keep Carbon in our tank, I would suggest getting a better quality brand, as well as STILL changing it every few weeks.

Regards
Z

 

i do believe the original debate was whether AC actually leached ANYTHING back into the water and not just phosphate or ammonia...keep in mind that i NEVER stated that anyone was wrong, and being a noobie at this, that would be foolish of me...

 

When Dirk gets back from the dark island i will ask him to post a full reply on this thread

 

you really dont need to admit defeat... this is what happens when people listen to the advice of LFS's and get bad advice on online..