Carbon Filtration
 

I was in Home Depot today and saw a "whole house carbon filter". It was a large filter which took carbon filter cartridges. I was wondering if anyone is running carbon cartridges on their tank instead of loose carbon? Is there a reason why I shouldn't go this route? There had to be at least a kg of carbon in the filter.

Interesting.....


Sent Via The Pirate Ship...

perhapes its really low quality and filled with phosphates. perhapes soak it in water and use your test kit before using on tank.

The carbon block would most likely clog prematurely,like within days:sad:

I could be wrong, but I think what you are looking at is an air quality filter and will not have any use for us reefers, unless you own an HVAC system
It's not meant for our uses ...

What did you think you could use it for ?

He might be thinking of the same kind of carbon filters we use in our RO systems, but the one that takes a 20 in cartridge instead of the 10 in that we are used to.

Dietmar, your PM box is full buddy :mrgreen:

It is a 10 micron filter intended for water filtration, not air. It is a big honking filter. I never thought of the phosphate issue.

It wouldn't be cheaper than buying bulk carbon and not all carbon is equal, some believe there is good carbon and there is bad carbon. Good carbon is awesome, bad carbon kills everything. What kind of carbon is in the home depot filter?

I assume this is what you're referring to:
http://www.homedepot.ca/product/filt...-500361/923082

3500ml of Rox carbon weights about 1.4 kg and costs under $40, many other types of carbon is available for half that.

I knew you'd come around to this eventually :)

That is a smaller filter that they had there. The one I was talking about is probably 3 - 4 times the size of that.

So it was 30-40" long?

It was 10 - 12 inches in diameter and probably 14 inches high. The housing was a monster.

The carbon we use is in small grains or pebbles if you will. the HD carbon is probably one big extruded block. Ten micron you said.
So in our filters, smaller particles will go right through the carbon filter with a low pressure pump.
In a 10 micron carbon block these particles will plug the filter quite quickly.
You would never get the water volume through the block that they are designed to be used for. As well they are designed to be used with house pressure water so you would need a high pressure pump.
Good idea, but I would not use the HD carbon block in the aquarium. As also stated already, we don't know the quality of the carbon.

but it had about 1kg of carbon?

Curious what you really saw, standard cartridges only come in 2.5" & 4.5" diameters.

They had those standard size cartridges there on the shelf also. This thing was a monster; that is what made it attractive. The bigger it is the less often you have to change it.