Carbon causing lateral line erosion

Discussion in 'Fish Diseases' started by dowtish, May 6, 2011.

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  1. haugcm2

    haugcm2 Spanish Shawl Nudibranch

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    ahh!! I JUST bought a dual carbon reactor... I am planning on using BRS lignite carbon... Should I maybe just use it sparingly now?
     
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  3. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    Use ROX 0.8 from them, it hardly powders out at all.
     
  4. RedGambit

    RedGambit Giant Squid

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    I use Rox 0.8... NO issue there... :) Or HLLE... I however never had an issue with the carbon from the aqueous cartridges that where for the HOB filter.... Then again I like to soak my fishes food in all kinds of vitamins so...
     
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  5. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    As it turns out, those were probably not lignite, but bituminous carbon, since it's really super cheap. That stuff doesn't powder out too much at all.
     
  6. haugcm2

    haugcm2 Spanish Shawl Nudibranch

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    Do you think it would be ok for me to use the lignite up first? On a college budget.. can't afford to waste anything. :p
     
  7. gabbagabbawill

    gabbagabbawill Pajama Cardinal

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    If you read the article, there is an obvious risk.... Do you have tangs?

    You have to ask yourself one question. "Do I feel lucky?" ;)
     
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  9. alpha_03

    alpha_03 Bubble Tip Anemone

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    Well back in the day when I was keeping lot's, and I mean lot's of Africans (they breed like crazy when happy) in my 110 gal fw tank, I found that carbon caused o2 issues, in such, that if carbon became used up the fish acted as if they couldn't get any o2.

    I found that carbon, when used in large amounts, becomes saturated very quickly and actually absorbes o2 from the water because it becomes "alive", when this happens it partially releases what it has already absorbed, but very slowly. (bad stuff to say the least)

    This made it tough to figure out what was going on.

    Then along came the Fluval 304, and this is when I finally figured out how carbon can cause major problems when it becomes saturated- but how do you know when carbon is saturated?

    Well, I still really do not know this answer. I just watch my critters- they know, and then I know.

    BTW, anyone know what black lung disease is? I equate bad carbon to this for our fishes.
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2011
  10. m2434

    m2434 Giant Squid

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    I never said to dismiss, I said to "take with a grain of salt". There is a significant difference. If you want to argue with me, please do not misquote me.

    Exactly a correlation, that is exactly what I said.....
    A correlation does not show causation, which is why I suggested taking it with a grain of salt.

    While the microscopic lesions are interesting, any assumption that they are associated with HLLE is also anecdotal. Any assumption that they are caused by activated carbon is also anecdotal. They have not shown cause and effect. They have shown that "coal based" activated carbon is correlated with HLLE and microscopic lesions. They did not show causation however. If I jump up, I come down. Jumping up however, is not the cause of coming down, gravity is. However, at least on earth, jumping up will lead to coming down, so it will be strongly correlated if I do an experiment.

    One hypothesis for why activated carbon may be associated with HLLE is because it may remove organic materials from the water. It has been shown that our tanks have unnaturally elevated levels of toxic metals. However, it is suspected that the reason that these do not appear to be as detrimental as one might expect, is because they tend to easily bind to and become trapped in organic complexes, where they are no longer harmful. Others have suggested, for years (this is nothing new), that it is possible that activated carbon removes organics from the water, which prevents binding of toxic metals to organics. Leading to increased metal toxicity in the water column. So, in this case, carbon would not be the cause, toxic metals would be, but carbon would be highly correlated.

    Possibly this is an issue, there are however potentially bigger issues which carbon helps prevent as a result of removing organics from the water column.

    The observation of no HLLE with GAC is certainly anecdotal and should be studies further, however this is not just a few people reporting this outcome. You would be hard pressed to find a TOTM for example that did not use activated carbon to some extent if not most of the time. You can take a look through the archives yourself and think of it as your own meta-analysis :) Of course this does not show that using activated carbon is not causal for HLLE any more than this study shows it is.

    There are also cases of HLLE when no carbon is used, so going back to the toxic metal hypothesis and the causal pathway. Other methods of removing organics, such as protein skimming could just as easily remove these complexes. Therefore, I could hypothesize that these also be associated with HLLE. This is of course speculation, however, so is any other conclusion based on this article, at this time, without further research.



    Ah... again, that's what I said....

    Have you looked at your fish for microscopic lesions? As mentioned, it has been hypothesized that the reason for the observed association may be a result of removing organic compounds from the water. Purigen acts very similar to carbon in this regard. In fact, purigen could be thought of as a synthetic non-coal based carbon (which I also recommended possibly using non-coal based carbon, if you read my comments BTW). If however, the organic material hypothesis is correct, then Purigen could have much the same effect, and needs to be studied further. So, again, more reason to take the results with "a grain of salt".




    Then why do you use Purigen?

    I apologize if I seem like I am being contentious. I probably am to some extent, however, my intention is only to point out why the results of this research should be interpreted with caution. The scientific process, is dynamic, complex and most important rigorous. In scientific world, we essentially never draw conclusions from one article. Ideas must be peer reviewed, reproduced and resulting hypothesizes further tested to avoid spurious conclusions. While there may be a causal link between carbon and HLLE, there may not, the association could just as easily be confounded and spurious.

    As I have said a number of times now, I do think the article shows that caution should be used when using lignite activated carbon. I will add that caution should also be used when not using lignite activated carbon. We do not know why activated carbon appears to be associated with HLLE and other substitutes for carbon could just as easily have the same effect. No definitive conclusion can be drawn at this time.



    In reality, based on what is known, you'd have to ask yourself "if you feel lucky" when using other methods such as purigen LOL.
     
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  11. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    I think it's because of the post I made before, plus tangs tend to swim the quickest and get it lodged in their tissues the easiest out of the commonly kept fish. It just adds up as far as I see it.
     
  12. alpha_03

    alpha_03 Bubble Tip Anemone

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    Na, think about it- smaller scales- less absorption, hence the reason for smaller scales- less absorption, look at other critters- like snakes- for example.

    Either way, we wont know for sure until some BM does the math, so to speak.