how can i clean up activated carbon in an aquarium?
by Aquaboy on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 | 3 Comments
I put activated carbon in my filter on my reef tank, the directions said that i didn’t need to rinse the carbon until the water was coming clear, so i just rinsed for like 20seconds, the i put it in the filter, and went to take a shower, when i got out of the shower, the water was completely black, after a couple hours it all settled on the bottom, i don’t have a protein skimmer, but would that help anyways if i did have one?
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Just change the water via siphon. Or just acquire a protein skimmer.
you will have to take every thing out siphon the tank get a big strainer wash the gravel the rinse the tank just because its a god chance to clean.
The carbon dust is not harmful, so you can remove it as you do normal maintenance. If you have substrate, the carbon dust will settle out of sight where you don’t siphon it out. In a bare bottom tank, you can siphon it out when you remove detritus. I prefer the brands, whether carbon only or a blend of carbon and resins, that come already wet since rinsing this is not much of a problem, plus since carbon wets down very slowly, the dry brands are only effective on the outer surface. By the time the inside of each particle is wet, it’s sealed in by adsorbed particles on the surface. Before using dry carbon, I’ll soak it in RO/DI or distilled water for two weeks so that the interior gets wet.
For the first month or two of a reef tank, a skimmer is not yet effective, but you will need one. it could pick up some of the dust when it’s floating around.