Running Carbon - How much is too much?

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Troy F

Beverly, what type of nutrient removal do you use? I'm curious as to the long term plausibility of a system with no skimmer or other removal system applied. What do you do to make up for it might be a better question?

In our nanos, I use AquaClear Minis with foam in the media chambers. In the 42 gal hex, I use a prefilter filled with foam with the 802 powerhead. As described in an earlier post, I gently turkey baste the rock and sandbed so detritus is lifted into the water column. The water can get really cloudy, so when the tank has cleared, I thoroughly clean the crud from the foams in outgoing changewater. I do this proceedure the day before, or even the morning before, weekly water changes. Depending on the situation in a particular tank, I might do the turkey basting thing between water changes and clean foams in RO.

The foams trap loads of crap from the water column. Even when I skimmed previous tanks, I still turkey basted them and cleaned foam in the prefilters for detritus export. I wouldn't go a week without basting a tank, ever. Too much detritus accumulates without it, which I believe eventually build up, and is the basis for all kinds of algae problems, especially cyano.

Just my personal experiences with our various reefs over the past 5 years or so.