# Amount of Activated Carbon per Gallon



## nagukush (Mar 13, 2008)

Hi Friends !

Just wanted to know the amount of activated carbon needed per gallon of Aquarium water. Actually my tank is 4 feet, about 200 Liters and the only option I have to keep activated carbon is a very small filter box which came and fits in with my Eheim Aquaball Internal Filter.

Just wanted to know if this small amount of carbon be of any significant use / effective in my tank or should I just leave out the carbon. Will such a small amount be effective in 200 liters of water ?

I want to run carbon continously and plan to change it every month. I want to use it to remove the organic wases and to maintain water clarity.

Kindly guide me a little here...
Thanks and Regards
Kush


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## evercl92 (Aug 14, 2006)

My vote would be zero. I haven't used it for many years now. The only real purpose for it is to remove medication after treating your tank.


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

It's to your advantage to use carbon during the first few weeks of setup after that as evercl92 said you don't need it. During the first few weeks the biological filter and plants haven't developed much yet and the carbon will fill the void until they mature.


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## nagukush (Mar 13, 2008)

Hi there !

But I dont have plants in my tank... my water almost always remains cloudy and clears when I add carbon...

So is it wrong or dangerous if a small amount of carbon is used every month ? I mean, is it like the small amount of carbon will quickly adsorb all it can and then release the stuff right back ?

Kindly guide me...


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## Cory Keeper (Dec 11, 2008)

I will use carbon every now and then to help rid the tank of tannins from the wood I have in there, other than that I don't run it.


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## supersmirky (Oct 22, 2008)

No plants????

Hmm...do you have fish in there yet?? How long has this been set up? It could be you just haven't cycled yet


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## nagukush (Mar 13, 2008)

The tank has been running for about 4 months... Its cycled but I dont have plants... Its a frontosa tank...


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## supersmirky (Oct 22, 2008)

Forget the carbon and put in purigen.

The cloudyness could be from maybe too many chemicals or you have hard water in your area. Do things usually settle back out?


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## nagukush (Mar 13, 2008)

Hi there !

Yes I have hard water and I also add some salt to my tanks... Its a frontosa tank so I also have a lot of sea shells, coral pieces etc...

Can this be the reason for the cloudiness ?

I also have a huge population of Malaysian Trumpet snails - are they causing this cloudiness ?

I guess I'll get a Yo-Yo Loach then... (its the only loach available here...) Will they keep the snails in control ?

Kindly guide me...


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## nagukush (Mar 13, 2008)

Friends kindly guide me...


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## rhodophyta (Jan 23, 2006)

The only plants I've had that might both tolerate Frontosas and salt would be Java moss, Java fern, Bolbitus fern, and giant vallisneria. The trumpet snails would only be causing cloudiness if they were dying. Are they healthy? Copper, brass, and some other metals are toxic to snails and should not be in an aquarium with them. 

200 liters is very small for a frontosa tank. How many do you have in it and how big? if you had a small frontosa four months ago, it may have grown enough to overpower the capacity of the aquarium. Yoyo loaches will eat snails, but they pull the snail out, leaving the empty snail behind, so without a close look, it will seem like you still have plenty of snails. Also the frontosa may go after the loaches. If you have ever caught a loach while fishing, you know they can sting, but a frontosa is unaware of this and just sees a potential sushi meal. if there are lots of crevices and small caves/tunnels in the rockwork, the two fishes might learn to get along. I have both kinds, but in different tanks and have never tried the experiment. 

If you had a bigger tank, Mylochromis cichlids would be my choice. They would be OK with fronts of the same size or a little larger, and are veterate snail eaters. Unlike fish that pick out the snail flesh, or crush the snail shell, Mylochromis simply swallow them whole, and a few days later a fine white sand begins to appear in the tank. I used to sweep out trumpet snails from the tanks walls of a hundred fish tanks early before the lights came on and pour a pint to a quart of snails into the MYLO tank where they would be all gone in seconds. However Mylochromis are likely to destroy any live (or plastic) plants in the aquarium whether they eat them or not.


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## rhodophyta (Jan 23, 2006)

As to the carbon, it only removes certain chemicals, such as chlorine, tannins, and possibly some metals, for a matter of days. After a week or two, its surface becomes sealed with a bioactive film and the carbon then functions only as a biofilter substrate. If you need the extra biological filtration, that is fine, but if you want to remove the orange color that builds up in aquarium water and neutralize any chlorine in the new water, replacing the carbon with new when you do weekly water changes is no problem, other than the time and expense.


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