Carbon causing lateral line erosion

Sorry, not quite following you here.

 

I had two Tangs, ran carbon continuously, and I would had challenged you to find a problem with the health of my fish or coral. One article is not enough to apply a blanket statement for an entire subject.

And resins simply remove anions and cations. They do not come close to reproducing what GAC does. Other than Purgen users and sellers, there is nothing showing that running resins is beneficial to running a reef. Resins are used in water treatment to remove salts and minerals. Any one can hook up a resin chamber to their tank and run resins.... but take a look at any successful reef and see how many are running GAC, and how many have a resin canister hooked up to their tank.

All I'm trying to say is that having such a stance on a product with no real proof of its usefulness with no real evidence... and then totally disregarding such a well demonstrated product such as GAC based on one article from a study seems pretty unbalanced.

 

Well as I know it, snakes breathe via their scales- the smaller these are the more o2 they can absorb, and the more "tuned" they are to the enviroment.

I can only assume this is true in other forms of nature. But again I am no snake expert, I just remember this from the days when I was learning about these critters,

 

I'm still not following what your point was about smaller vs larger scales...

 

well look at large scale fishes- what are their feeding habits, what type of fish are they usually classified as? compare this to known smaller scaled fishes.

now look at snakes, look at how they are classified, then look at the scaling of said snake- read how they survive and live- very much like fish- very much, scarry how much they are nearly the same in many ways.

 

I agree that this study needs further testing, but I do believe that the study shows that using carbon can exacerbate the effects of HLLE. It is the 11 fish in the control group showing ZERO microscopic lesions that has me believing that there is a definite correlation to carbon in the ones that do.

M2434, I stand by my dismissal comment. Your posts reflect that you believe that carbon is ok with tangs and doesn't present a problem and is worth the risks. If you thought there was a risk, then you are putting your tang in harms way knowingly... However, you seem to be ok with it. You blew off the study with your "sky is falling" comment. So, please let's don't get into semantics, but it was obvious in your original posts that you are dismissing this study's credibility.

I think that it is safe to say that using carbon can be risky.

If you want to look at a tank that's doing well without carbon, look at mine.

M2434, You seem to say that purigen is doing the same thing as carbon, then discredit it at the same time... maybe I read that wrong, but that is what it sounds like. I can't tell you exactly what is going on within purigen, but we do know what DI resin does, and we all use it.... My purigen turns dark brown as it removes organics, it seems... since I've been using biopellets, it seems that the purigen takes a lot longer to change color. One can assume that it is removing something undesirable from the water.

 

I'm pretty sure Purigen doesn't remove everything that carbon does, and wouldn't risk trying to remove all carbon in favor of Purigen in a tank with significant numbers of chalices, leathers and/or zoas.

As far as I could tell, the study was about carbon fines. Thorough rinsing and use of either bituminous or extruded (i.e. ROX 0.8) carbon instead of lignite carbon should prevent this from being a problem at all, as suggested (in a roundabout way) by m2434's posts and the research, if it turns out to be true.

 

I agree on both accounts...

I don't keep leathers, zoa's or chalices, so maybe that can attribute partially to my success with SPS keeping while not running carbon... ;D

 

Heh, that would definitely help. Carbon removes the chemicals that leathers and some zoas and chalices let out into the water. It's not too bad for a week or two, but over time it can get really nasty in there.

I actually had issues with most of my LPS before I figured that one out about my chalice. I'd change the carbon, and everything would open up. After about 3 weeks, they'd start to close again. Rinse, repeat, until I read something about chalices and allelopathy, and it just clicked.

 

Again, yes correlation, not causation...

Sorry, not sure what a dismissal comment is?

You keep putting words into my mouth. I never said it dosn't present a problem. I actually said it could. However, not removing organics and toxins, which carbon does, can present a bigger problem. HLLE is reversible and not typically fatal. The result of certain toxins and decaying organics can result in an environment that is fatal for some inhabitants, especially invertebrates.

I also said carbon should be used cautiously and possibly alternatives to lignite carbon may be worth consideration if you are concerned. However, as the causal pathway is yet unknown anything that acts in a similar way to carbon has the potential to show a similar association to HLLE.

I am ok with using carbon in a tank with tangs, as this has been done for decades with no apparent ill effect in most cases. There are certainly other factors involved which this study has not looked at. This study provides a very preliminary glimpse into the association and should be interpreted cautiously.

And again, for the ith time, I do think the study shows caution should be taken when using carbon in a reef tank. Certainly if ill effects are observed certainly removal of the carbon or a change to a non coal based carbon may be warranted.

I never blew off the study and never used any words "sky is falling". I apologize, but I really have no idea what you are talking about with that comment. You seem to be the one who thinks this article suggests that the world is coming to and end (at least for tangs when using carbon LOL).

I certainly have not questioned the studies credibility. Everything I have said in fact has been consistent with the data and evidence presented in the study. Perhaps if you paid more attention to the semantics, you would not be arguing...

I think it's safe to say that in some cases using carbon MAY be risky. Again that's semantics though

OK, so, if you think insight can be gained by looking at a tank, that fits a certain criteria. Then why are you unwilling to accept that many tanks do well with tangs and carbon, when there are plenty of examples of them all over the web?

Again, as I've said, the issue with the interpretation that "carbon is bad" with tangs, is that you are basing this on a correlation. If the causation is with regards to what is being removed, then the filtration such as your protein skimmer and purigen etc... could be having the same effect. You can't draw the conclusion from this article that carbon is worse than protein skimming, purigen, or anything else for that matter.

I am saying that purigen could be removing organics from the water column. Actualy, as powerman pointed out, purigen is an ion-exchange resin. When I made my comment, I was under the impression that it is organic adsorption media. Ion-exchange probably dosn't do much of anything in saltwater actually, but that's another topic.

In my initial post, I didn't discredit purigen, I said that if it's a replacement for carbon, then it could just as easily have the same effect as carbon with regards to HLLE. You can not say that it dosn't and there is no reason to suspect it dosn't based on anything in the article.

Ok, I am not sure where you are going here or what this has to do with HLLE. As far as removing undesirable things, carbon will remove much more than an ion-exchange resin. Especially in salt water.