Aqua sobriquet
Member
Would sell Carbon filter foams for the trays. It would save me the bother of cutting them out.
Can’t just fill a bag with carbon and stick it in the top basket?I’ve no idea as I’ve not used them before. I have been using carbon granules and that works but not so easy to implement well due to the shape of the filter baskets.
Yes that’s why I’m giving the foam a tryThe top basket is the same shape so with anything that is in bags you get plenty of bypass.
they are perfect for bacterial colonies - due to their relatively high surface.Do these things actually work though, or are they just a fad ?
As a carbon sponge. I wouldn’t be expecting it to be great for bacteria, I would want it to do the job of regular carbon and clean the water, unless I’m missing something here?they are perfect for bacterial colonies - due to their relatively high surface.
As a carbon sponge. I wouldn’t be expecting it to be great for bacteria, I would want it to do the job of regular carbon and clean the water, unless I’m missing something here?
Hence why I originally asked if they’re any good.The problem as mentioned seems to be how much carbon is needed.... A 100g bag of activated carbon lasts between 2-4 weeks
if the sponge pictured above has 10g of activated carbon added to it (and that might be a generous estimate- only weighing it and comparing with a non-carbon sponge will give a more accurate estimate), the carbon will probably last 1-2 days? Not sure how much 'cleaning' that amount of carbon will do.
I think carbon is still effective, even if it’s not spread across the surface of the tray, provided it’s in a good area for water flow and not before your media it should work perfectly fine?When I ran a Tetra EX600 on the tank with a bag of Carbon in the top tray it did a good job of removing tannins from the tank. The EX600 has roughly square trays though so it wasn’t too difficult to spread a mesh bag with carbon in it over the entire tray to minimise bypass. This is not possible due to the shape of the trays in the Biomaster though. This is perhaps why Oase sell Carbon Foam filters for the Prefilter. The carbon foam is noticeably heavier than plain foam but how long it will last I don’t know yet. A bag of carbon seemed to last up to maybe four weeks before the tannins were noticeable again.View attachment 195551