Do I need to use carbon?

I personally still run carbon on tanks with fish that aren't known for hlle.


but water changes are also another option albeit a more difficult one.

I wonder if you could use purigen for toxin absorption?

 

can you expand on this conclusion, you have piqued my interest.

 

A good quality carbon sub as ROX .8 or Matrix really is pretty dust free. So if it is fines, this shouldn't be an issue The article only tested lignite carbon though, and didn't provide any mechanism or reason for their results. Most people that run carbon don't see HLLE and others who don't sometimes do. So there is more to the story. Regardless HLLE is not considered fatal and if treated early is reversible. The same can't be said for the toxins carbon removes. Certainly if you see HLLE then it would certainly be reasonable to discontinue use or change brands. There are a heck of a lot of toxins in our tanks though, to me, That's a much bigger risk, without Question...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The Carbon Theories

Researched and written by Nathan Henderson

http://www.aquarium-design.com/fish/hlle.html

 

I guess I'm playing devils advocate in this thread:

I'm curious as to how many people, with carbon examine there fish for microscopic lesions? In my mind its possible carbon could harm all fish just to different degrees. Of course more testing would be needed.

I find the idea of carbon being caustic toward fish very interesting, it would explain why fine particle carbon would be worse.

 

I made a mistake and mentioned bituminous carbon instead of pelletized, and I always call it litnigous rather than lignite, but bituminous also has far less fines than lignite carbon. My conclusion is based on the facts as I've seen them. Lignite carbon has the most fines out of the carbon types. It's also the one that had the largest instance of HLLE according to this study, where the lignite was unwashed (which removes the fines) before being put in the tank. HLLE happens to be found in types of fish with very thin slime coats that swim quickly, particularly tangs. HLLE typically appears on the front portion of the fish. It's also suspected via (a large quantity of) anecdotal evidence that it happens far more frequently in fish that are undernourished and in nutrient-deficient systems than in well fed fish in nutrient rich environments.

Given these facts, I highly suspect the mechanic behind HLLE is that fines get lodged in the fish's skin. These fines leach nutrients from both the fish and the water until depletion (as carbon normally does). The worse this leaching becomes from the fish's tissues instead of the water, and the less the fish can replace these nutrients (via feeding), the worse the HLLE appears. Fines are eventually exhausted of leaching capabilities, as carbon doesn't last forever in its ability to filter out nutrients, which prevents a single fine from making a gigantic hole in the fish alone. The progress of HLLE, in my view, is thus determined by the amount of nutrients in the water, how much the fish eats, and the level of carbon fines in the water.


As for Purigen, I wouldn't trust something to absorb everything that carbon does when you don't know what it is or how it's acting on said toxins and nutrients. Carbon is a well known substance, and anyone can know every one of its properties via enough research. That information just isn't available for Purigen.


Water changes don't remove the organics to the level that carbon does. There's a fundamental flaw with water changes, where it becomes impossible to remove more of those substances than the percentage of water that you change, so you get growth of the level towards an asymptote (if the level stays constant).


For example, imagine your 100G tank produces 100 molecules of palytoxin in a week. You do a 20% water change after a week, which reduces the amount of palytoxin to 80 molecules. Then, another week goes by. Your tank produces another 100 molecules of palytoxin, and you do a 20% water change again. You now have 144 molecules of palytoxin. This number will continue to grow infinitely towards an asymptote (in theory), but to what is basically a capped level after a couple months in practice (the growth gets ever smaller, so you're talking .1 molecules, .001 molecules, etc).


The problem is, your tank will never just produce 100 molecules forever, which that math is based on. As your corals (or fish) grow, they will produce more of the waste or toxin. So in reality, if you keep everything alive and have it grow, you can reasonably say that you should add to the growth week over week, which prevents the level from ever reaching that maximum cap - a big problem with the idea that water changes can definitely keep up a system like this alone.

 

You could always, do water changes a few days in a row ;D
but point taken.

 

Either way, you still hit the same asymptote, just at a lower level. But I know I would most definitely not be able to do it, unless I changed daily. I can tell within 2 days of removing carbon or having it exhausted because my inhabitants nearly immediately behave differently, then they perk back up within a day of putting in new carbon. It may not be as obvious depending on what you have in the tank, but there will be some effect on the inhabitants.

It's really much easier to run carbon, rinse it and feed a bit more than deal with daily water changes trying to keep the level low, especially when it doesn't do as good of a job and leaves your system ever so more unstable.

 

carbon is carbon...
weather it's fine or pellet..
rinse them before you place them in your reactor...

 

There's a giant difference between different carbons. I've typed enough in this thread already, but they are most definitely not all the same. Some can even promote algae growth...