Replacing carbon filters

[gkbe]

Hey all,

Just a quick hopefully easy question. We have an underground gravel filter with 2 upright thingies with charcol filters, technical name ! Shop where I got it from says to replace each month. Now is it just a straight swap or should I let them sit or the water before hand or ?

Any help much appreciated !

Thanks :)

[jusdeb]

I usually just give my carbon thingies a good rinse in water that I have syphoned out of the tank during the water change and then put them straight in.

I do this because the carbon quite often has a lot of small particles in it when it is new and this stops the paticles from clouding the tank.

If your worried that your wiping out your good bacterial load then you can get bio balls which stay in your tank so you always have good bacteria.

Hope this helps and as you can see Im not real technical myself.

[Rod]

Just for the record.....

You may be new to fish keeping....excuse me if you are not

Carbon provides chemical filtration....very good a removing medications from water after treatment etc.

there is a school of thought (that I subscribe too) that you shouldn't run carbon filtration ALL the time....it also removes minerals and trace elements that are desirable....especially if you have plants in the tank.

If you are running undergravel filtration it is desirable to clean the gravel regularly to remove a build up of waste in the gravel as this is the filter media....the more rubbish in the gravel the less efficient the filtration and reduction in bacteria needed to process ammonia and nitrite.

Personally I'd only use undergravel filtration on a non planted Rift lake tank....and for most tanks I'd have at least 50mm of gravel....and have lots of plants to use excess nutrients....filtration by internal power filter,hang on or canister filter (all these are much easier to clean) without any carbon ....unless I was trying to remove medication.

You can save a lot of money to buy plants and fish by not buying new carbon filters every month :(

[jusdeb]

Or if your clever you can replace the carbon inside the cartridges which is what I do...I do a mix of carbon and zeolite , put it in a stocking then put that inside the cartridge ....costs next to nothing.