Carbon causing lateral line erosion

No, not really, that was their hypothosis, however, that was not found to be the case. In fact the authors said that they could not find any evidence of fines in histological examination. Fines however, have been one of a few dominant hypothesizes for why carbon is associated with HLLE. The suspected association of carbon with HLLE is not new, this study just took us a small step further in understanding this association. There is a long way to go however. This study does not show definitive causation and therefore caution should be taken when interpreting the data, to avoid spurious conclusions.

 

Just to clarify. What I am saying, is for the past few years, there have been a few hypotheses regarding the association of carbon with HLLE.

One is the fines hypothoses, and the other is the organic, metal binding hypothosis I have mentioned.

If the fines hypothosis is correct, then yes, using an alternative to lignite carbon could be preferable. And as a precaution, this probably isn't a bad idea.

However, if the organic binding hypothosis is true, then switching to an alternative carbon will not help. Even protein skimming could potentially result in HLLE if that is the case. Or any other method of organic removal for that matter.

Of couse there could be something else going on entirely, no one yet knows, so no one can yet say what the solution is. The only think you can do, is what seems to work best for you and what you are most comfortable with. What the article does is remind us that carbon is not necessarily 100% safe and caution should be taken when using it, or a substitute for it.

 

yes, we have established this.

Look at previous posts regarding me saying that you dismissed the study.

no, I'm providing perspective on what it seems you are arguing for/against.

OK, if you want to get into semantics, please name all of the "organics and toxins" that carbon specifically removes and how this benefits every reef aquarium that is running carbon.

really? please show me cases where HLLE was successfully reversed to the point of no evidence of damage to the fish. Also, please tell me how you came to the conclusion that HLLE is not typically fatal. I would like you to reference a case study if possible.

OK

you are mixing evidence with non-evidence. please show me evidence where "something similar to carbon has the potential to show similar association to HLLE".

Yes, it is preliminary, but it shows a direct correlation, so using carbon in a tank with tangs is doing so at a known risk.

OK.

sorry, I just realized that I was referencing another person's sarcastic comment.

who said I'm aruing?

because it is anecdotal evidence... we do not know that these tangs show zero signs of HLLE, visually or microscopic. I say this because many hobbyists that have otherwise successful tanks would likely not want to admit that they have tangs showing HLLE. We have no real evidence for OR against this. Your statements suggest that a reef tank cannot be successful without carbon, however mine is, so your arguments FOR carbon are not that strong in my case. I'm asking for you to please tell me why "carbon's benefits far outweigh the risks" as you said, but I cannot see any reason to use it in my tank, which is doing quite well.

I think this study, though it did not test purigen, did show that carbon correlates with a problem.

agree that it's another topic, so let's just assume purigen is a non-issue and we're only talking about carbon, then...

agree, so let's remove purigen from this debate.

see above.

 

this is very interesting to read. you both would be great on a debate team

 

Edit: browser malfunction, duplicate post.

 

I am arguing that the results should be taken with caution, as the many people have used GAC for decades with great success. Also, nothing in the data presented by this article shows that carbon is any more or less associated with HLLE than any of the potential filtration methods which one might employ in place of carbon.

That's quite the demand and not necessary to corroborate up any of my points. To corroborate my points, I only need to show that activated carbon has benifits which may outweigh the risks. Others have done this substantially, so I am not going to re-invent the wheel. Here are some basic references.

Activated Carbon



Activated Carbon from Carbon Link: Impregnated activated carbon for environmental protection



Activated Carbon Company offering full range of Activated Carbon products with ANSI/NSF Standard 61 and ISO 9002 certification.



Activated Carbon in the Marine Tank



Aquarium Frontiers On-Line: July 1997: Product Review



Aquarium Frontiers On-Line: Feature

Did you read the article? The authors said when they removed the fish from the tank water, they recovered LOL. In addition there have been many cases where people where reversed HLLE. Why don't you prove to me that they were wrong and there was still evidence to the fish

As far as fatality, the authors of this article, said this exactly.
Why don't you show me a case study where it is
HLLE and Activated Carbon: Looking for a Link | Coral Magazine

I am not mixing evidence with non-evidence, I'm using the fundamental principles of the scientific method to suggest alternative explanations based on known biologically plausible hypotheses.

Show me that "something similar to carbon" definitely does not have "the potential to show similar association to HLLE"

Yes, that's the problem, it only shows a correlation:
Confounding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again, you are misquoting me. I have not and will not say "reef tank cannot be successful without carbon". I said that the benefits to carbon outweigh the risks IMO. I will and have said carbon removes things that need to be removed for a reef tank to be successful. You can remove these by other means, however, until you can show a cause of HLLE, you can not say that these other means are any more safe than GAC.

That's the problem, you can not conclude that carbon should be removed and is unsafe without first showing that there is a better alternative.

No, lets not, see above. If you think purigen should be removed from this debate, you clearly do not understand why a correlation is different than causation. Anything that removes things, which carbon removes could potentially cause HLLE. Even a protein skimmer or water changes. You can't draw the conclusion that they won't based on this article, it does not present any information regarding the causal pathway.

 

Saying correlation does not equal causation is correct but insufficient. There are some really interesting questions raised here that are left untouched. If I wanted to, I don't think I could cause HLLE in a tang. I may be wrong, we could all run a massive experiment. We could all add lignite carbon and report back in three months. I don't think the result would be anything like the 100% HLLE this experiment yielded.

If I'm right (right now all I'm offering is something between mere conjecture and hypothesis), I think it would be reasonable to suppose HLLE is actually caused by carbon+something, or caused by something and accelerated/encouraged by carbon.

I don't want to get too far into the weeds about the benefits of carbon, lets assume, for now, they exist... certainly enough people believe they do to make the purging of carbon from the worlds tanks unlikely.

What this study tells us is that we really need to figure out what the cause of HLLE is. It is possible the cause is carbon, but there are a range of other possible causes that, in interaction with carbon, yield HLLE.

 

The study is good enough for me, While it may or may not be a direct cause its probably at least a secondary effect of having it in there.

I probably will never use carbon in a tank with tangs again.

 

I need to correct some false statements I made. I have looked into Purigen before but get it mixed up with Chemipur. Chemipur is ion exchange resin.... Purigen is not.

When I have looked at stuff on Purigen there is nothing out there saying what it is or how it work... only that it is some polymer equivalent to GAC but better. GAC works as a chemical filter and sort of as a mechanical filter... it chemically attracts, but it also removes simply by organics getting caught in the pores. Purigen does not say how it work and nobody seems to know either. Hard to make a good comparison without data...

Anyhoo.... I just need to say I was wrong saying Purigen was resins.

But it does beg the question.... If the study has found that GAC causes HLLE, but does not state what the mechanism is.... then how do we know that Purigen does not have the same mechanism, if it is touted as a synthetic GAC?

 

m2434 and gabbagabbawill....You are my heroes!