How much activated carbon??

[litlfisher]

As everyone knows carbon is beneficial. However I have read that
in excess(like drinking a good cold beer) :wink: this can be a bad thing. That not only does it remove waste product, but it can also remove essential elements. So any suggestions on how much is recommended for a reef? Say per 80 gal.

 

[Anonymous]

It's hard to say without knowing more details about your setup (such as volume, light, inhabitants, filtration, etc).

Personally I don't use activated carbon in any of my filters. The thing people forget (or don't know) about carbon is that it usually does most of the absorption in the first 24-72 hours. After that, you're just using a biological culture as a filter. . .

 

[ChrisRD]

IIRC, Richard Harker did some testing on activated carbon a while back and came to the conclusion that it doesn't have any significant impact on the useful elements in seawater.

Personally, I've never noticed any negative effects from running it continuously. I've run it both intermittently and continuously - seems to work fine either way, but as mentioned above it does become an aerobic media after a while (which probably doesn't add up to anything significant BTW)...

 

[Anonymous]

If you are doing occasional water changes, I doubt that you could use too much.

I stopped using it altogether, but if my water took on a yellowish tint I would put some in.