- Location
- Upper West Side
The only real concern you need to have with carbon is it leaching phosphates into the water. Get yourself a high quality carbon. It has been a LONG time, but perhaps someone can find the old Aquarium Frontiers article that compared different brands of activated carbon? A good, inexpensive carbon is the one sold at Petland Discounts in the blue cardboard "milk" container.
Carbon will remove Disolved Organic Compounds, heavy metals, the chemicals corals put out and phosphates. Basically it can only absorb up to a certain amount for each of these. For heavy metals I think carbon is exhausted within days if not hours. For DOC's it is a bit longer.
It is perfectly safe to run carbon 24/7, I would recommend changing it at least once a month. As was mentioned, if you wait too long before changes the water gets more discolored and when cleaned, your corals can be burned by metal halide lighting.
If you keep soft corals and LPS/SPS corals together, activated carbon or MAJOR monthly water changes are a must in addition to very agressive skimming.
-Alfred
Carbon will remove Disolved Organic Compounds, heavy metals, the chemicals corals put out and phosphates. Basically it can only absorb up to a certain amount for each of these. For heavy metals I think carbon is exhausted within days if not hours. For DOC's it is a bit longer.
It is perfectly safe to run carbon 24/7, I would recommend changing it at least once a month. As was mentioned, if you wait too long before changes the water gets more discolored and when cleaned, your corals can be burned by metal halide lighting.
If you keep soft corals and LPS/SPS corals together, activated carbon or MAJOR monthly water changes are a must in addition to very agressive skimming.
-Alfred
