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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Does carbon really cut the mustard?

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15 Apr 2010 19:04 #1 by mickdeja (Mick Whelan)
Put carbon into me filter today as i have used some meds over the last while and added a load of new bogwood and there is quite a lot of brown in the water, anyway what i am askin is carbon really all it makes out to be or is it just another one of those things that is suppose to sort out yer tank..........lookin for carbon lovers here.....

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15 Apr 2010 20:00 #2 by CJackson (Frank Farrell)
I've never been a carbon lover, but have started using it lately. Thing is, I started using it along with other things like JBL SymecMicro. So yes, water is crystal clear, but don't know whether it's the carbon or the other stuff. When I had a lot of bogwood in the tank and used carbon I never noticed the colour clear - water changes were the only thing that worked, water changes with Easy Life Fluid Filter Medium. Isn't active carbon what you get in those anti-hangover pills? Well, they never worked for me either.

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16 Apr 2010 09:21 #3 by Gavin (Gavin)
yeah carbon does work.you have to be careful and change it as over time it releases stuff back in the water.

dont make me come over there.

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16 Apr 2010 09:32 #4 by joemc (joe mc)
really? I thought it did not release anything back into the water, but that it lost it active filtering ability after a while and then only acted like a biological media

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16 Apr 2010 20:35 #5 by mickeywallace (Michael Wallace Cath Woods)
yes Gavin is spot on there it should always be removed or renewed! I would agree after it has released every thing it would become part of the bio material but it would also have done more damage in the short term. thus it would be better to simply remove it!

it is not a magic bullet it takes time to remove chemicals from the water.

I am not a fan of constant use of it in the aquarium, but it is nice to have on standby just in case!

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16 Apr 2010 21:11 #6 by mickdeja (Mick Whelan)
How long do u leave it in for, it says 6 weeks on the packet?

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16 Apr 2010 22:57 #7 by joemc (joe mc)

I would agree after it has released every thing it would become part of the bio material but it would also have done more damage in the short term. thus it would be better to simply remove it!

it is not a magic bullet it takes time to remove chemicals from the water.


hi mickeywallace,
I think you are wrong on this one, can you explain to me how the carbon absorbs the likes of chemicals, medications and disolved organic molecules along with others ,and then re-releases them back into the water column........ and why would it have to do this to be able to act as a biological filter medium?
I am not a fan of using carbon in filters as I believe that it is an expensive form of filtration, regular and large water changes will tend to deal with the above mentioned pollutants, I do think it is good to give that bit of sparkle to aquarium water when other filtration media have failed.
I don't understand the 'magic bullet' bit of your post, as I would have been of the opinion that if you introduced a fresh unused pack of a good quality activated carbon into a filtration system it would deal quickly with the above mentioned examples
regards
joe mc

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16 Apr 2010 23:36 #8 by mickeywallace (Michael Wallace Cath Woods)
don't quite know how to explain this. friendly bacteria covers every surface of our tanks you may not see it but its there. Carbon sponges or charcoal once expired will still provide a home for this bacteria.

there are three types of filtration
mechanical - sponges filter cotton

biological- friendly bacteria

chemical - carbon or Zeolite

the difference is its use is no longer chemical but biological.

but some one else might explain it better.

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16 Apr 2010 23:43 #9 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
At one stage i ran an ionic carbon filter for my tap water.
After a while the TDS was higher coming out of the filter than it was going in.
The carbon was obviously leaching back what it had previously taken out of the water.

Just my 2 cents worth.

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17 Apr 2010 07:24 #10 by joemc (joe mc)
I did a bit of internet googling on carbon in the aquarium to see if I could find something that explained clearly some of the myths or mistruths that have become ingrained in our fishkeeping habits,
here is one I think is clearly written
www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/carbon.htm
my conspiracy theory is that the misinformation has been fed to us over time by the companies that produce this stuff!!

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17 Apr 2010 20:34 #11 by mickeywallace (Michael Wallace Cath Woods)
nice link just states what had been said more clearly

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18 Apr 2010 10:40 #12 by joemc (joe mc)
yeah;)

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18 Apr 2010 12:41 #13 by mickdeja (Mick Whelan)
Sound for all the info lads...:) :) :)

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