Carbon disintegration?

[Anonymous]

I simply don't get it.... Carbon can't go "bad" can it?? How could this happen?

I rinsed the carbon really good before adding it last night and didn't notice anything goofy with it when I put it in a bag and tied it on the end of my sump drain hose, but when I get up this morning it looks like somone snuck in and did a tint job on my glass overnight.... :x

I'm running a canister with the micron sleeve inserted to try and pull it out of the water column, but a lot has already adhered itself to parts of the rock, sand and some wierd rust-colored slime algae I haven't been able to fully shake for several months now..


Anyone have any idea how this might have happened??

Full tank shot.. Black haze...

Sump looking darker than ever....

"Dust" adhering to rock/sand...

 

[hillbilly]

Yuck! Years ago when I had freshwater fish, I had this happen with
walmart cheapo carbon. Mine was not as bad though. I removed it
a diatom filter filled with diatomaceous earth. I'm not sure why the
carbon broke down like that. I blamed it on poor quality. You may
have to remove stuff from the tank and rinse it in salt water to
remove it. :?

 

[Ben1]

Either a cheap carbon or a bad batch. Also putting the overflow tube tied in the bad probably caused the carbon to tumble around in the bag grinding it self up. I had this happen years ago in a full reef tank. For me I just didnt rinse the cheap carbon enough. Sometimes when you get cheap carbon you can rinse all day and not get all the dust out.

HTH

 

[-JB]

Do you use PO4minus? I found the same thing to happen this product with carbon running.

 

[Anonymous]

No, no PO4-... I suppose it could have been pumelled by the overflow drain.. Then again could be cheap carbon too.. (See pic...)

I think I'm going to wind up having to tear down in order to clean it up. Add that to the fact that the lady wants it "prettied up" (the stand closed in like a display tank vs. my DIY open framed 2x4 stand..) I might as well tear down and move it to the basement I guess.. :? Not a biggy as there's not much in it actually, but sucks to not even get fully off the ground before having to tear down..

 

[MattM]

FYI -

About a year ago we did some tests on carbon. We put a granule into a phosphate test along with RO/DI water and waited a couple of days to check for phosphate leaching.

The brands that showed no phosphate:

• Kent Reef Carbon
• Two Little Fishies Hydrocarbon
• Marineland Black Diamond
• Seachem

The range of results was amazing - Aquarium Pharmaceuticals carbon (comes in a milk carton-like container) showed phosphate off the scale in 10 minutes whereas the TLF Hydrocarbon showed no trace after two weeks.

Of these, the TLF Hydrocarbon had the most open structure and was best at removing yellow from water (amine compounds). Marineland Black Diamond was second. Both the Kent and Seachem were very hard pellets that are not nearly as porous. A typical tank got about the same de-yellowing effect with 4 days of Kent or 12 hours of TLF.

We didn't see any that gave the results you've seen. I'd guess it was ground up by water action.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Matt, I'll keep that in mind when I set up again. (I even have some Marineland Black Diamond on hand but flippantly choose to use the Tetra stuff up..) Two bad decisions in one fell stroke.

Norm

 

[saltshop]

Had the same thing happen when the inlet portion of the canister filter became blocked. I wound up losing 53 of my 62 SPS colonies before all was said and done. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=169772

BTW, I use the Black Diamond carbon...must be something about carbon and us MI reefers that does not mix well.