Watering Down Liquid Carbon

[td731]

Hi all, im new to this site and relatively new to planted tanks and fish keeping in general!

I recently got a a 20L nano tank (I have had a 70L tank for a while) and have been dosing with liquid carbon with a pipette (0.5 mL). For easier dosing I bought a pump bottle online in the hope that one 'pump' was 1 mL. However it is 2 mL which is too much for my nano tank (but fine for my bigger one). My question is, could I dilute the liquid carbon in dechlorinated water to make dosing with the pump bottle feasible or will that do something funny to the product?

The liquid carbon I have been using is TNC Carbon.

Many thanks! 😀

 

[zozo]

I'm not a chemist, all I know is liquid carbon substantially is based upon glutaraldehyde. This is actually a corrosive biocide (disinfectant) it reacts with protein such as in organic cells. Then I guess if you dilute it with tap water that likely contains some organic substances it might react with the glut and weaken its effectiveness.

Liquid carbon is not 100% Glut. Thus it already is diluted, it obviously can be diluted even further. But then rather use demineralized/condensed water from a bottle instead of tap water.

 

[Oldguy]

dilute the liquid carbon

.




'Liquid carbon' is typically a 1.5% solution in water of Glutaraldehyde. The shop bought liquid carbon can be diluted with water. The easiest way of have a supply of low cost 'pure' water is to buy some reverse osmosis (RO water ) from your local fish shop( LFS)

Another approach is to buy a pack of plastic teat pipettes from eBay which would enable you to measure small quantities of shop strength product.

 

[dino21]

Most big supermarkets , car section, stock bottles of De-ionised water which is also pure. About £1.50.