Can i use charcoal powder for aquarium filter?
by Aquaboy on Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 | 4 Comments
I was just curious i have charcoal powder and i know you can use charcoal for filter i was wondering if you can use powder in the filter or maybe i can make them into tablets.
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You should only use special filter (activated) carbon for your tank to make sure it will absorb all impurities. Not all carbon forms i.e. charcoal powder will be able to do this.
Hope this helps
Yes you can.
Go to any store and buy small cloth bag. You can find these in hobby shop or make one. If you have the money to spend go to pet store and buy one.
Then put the charcoal in and close it tightly and hang it next to a high water flow area.
By the way activate means high degree of microporosity. And just that.
There are many form of activated material sold in the form of fine powder. Once put in the bag and closed tight, they simply cannot escape and pass through the cloth material.
Seachem has many product sold including the bag.
-rds
No, you can’t use charcoal powder; only use well-rinsed granulated or pelletized activated carbon. Powder will dissipate through the water and hurt the fish. There is thought to be a connection between hole-in-the-head (HITH), a fish disease, and carbon dust. But regardless, it will make the water black.
In general, you only need to use carbon right after medication, or to remove other specific contaminants (such as if you prefilter tap water before adding to the tank). Some people use it to remove dissolved organics that gradually turn water yellow, but water changes will work for that and remove nitrates, too.
@Black Kat. The glue is an interesting suggestion (though impractical, as you noted), but I’d like to comment that most glues would probably saturate the carbon with organic vapors and other chemicals, and coat many of its pores, too
Commercial air filters have carbon stages with fine charcoal dust stuck firmly on fibers, but I don’t know how it gets stuck there.
I would doubt that you could use powder, the particles would be so small, they’d go right through you floss or foam or whatever you were using to hold them and make your water look dirty. You have to have a way to contain the charcoal so that the water flows through it.
And I don’t know how you would make the powder into pellets. If you were to use any kind of glue or binder, you’d be blocking water from getting to that part of the charcoal, so it wouldn’t be as effective in removing anything from the water in your tank.
You could glue it to something, like gravel or an ornament, but charcoal only absorbs so much, then it can release what’s bound to it back into your water. So you’d have to replace whatever you glued it to each month.
While it might sound like a good idea and a way to use the powder and not have to buy this for your tank, it really isn’t very practical to do.
And most aquarists don’t use carbon/charcoal in their tanks all the time, only when they need to remove medication, or have driftwood that’s discoloring their water.
ADDED Actually I was thinking of aquarium grade silicone, gel cyanoacrylate [super glue], or marine epoxy would be used as the glue. All are aquarium safe when dry and cured, and some kinds can be used in the water. But it’s still not practical to use them.