i guess i didnt rinse carbon good enough

I thought I rinsed my carbon good enough. Now everything in my sump and tank is covered in what looks like carbon dust. What do i do to get it cleaned up. I am at a loss here.

 

it shouldn't be harmful to anything, & will most likely go away on its own. What type of carbon is it, I know for my Chemi Pure Elite I have to rinse and rinse and rinse but it still leeches some discoloration in, nothing worrysome though.

 

Put a filter sock on if you don't have one, swish the the water around get it (the carbon) moving back into the water column and the filter sock will clean it out.

Or if the sock is not an option out a big piece of filter pad in a regular white cotton sock (clean preferably) and put it over the end of you drain tube and do the same thing. You will have to watch this because it might fill up and plug up rather quickly.

You can also siphon it out and dump the water down the drain.

How much carbon did you use? Either you have a small tank or you used lots of carbon. I have put a sock full of carbon in my tank with out washing it a bit and never had "Carbon Dust" laying around.

No matter what it really shouldn't cause to much trouble, other than looking kinda freaky.

 

"(clean preferably)" ....I LOVE IT!! lol

 

how do you post threads?????????????????????????/

 

It is a 75 gallon tank with a 30 gallon sump. I pointed my power heads on the rock to stir up the dust and i have a filtersock now on my overflow line. The water was cloudy from it also. I guess i used too much carbon. I had it on my skimmer return for water flow over it. this was prob a bad idea from what had happened. overnight.

 

oh yea it was marineland activated carbon

 

Definetly be careful with carbon dust. After rinsing I always dip it in a cup of ro water to see if there is any dust left. There is something called HLLE that is partly caused by carbon dust. it is also caused by poor diet but i am always as carefull as possible with the carbon dust in your system as it's not good for the fishies. If your not fromilliar with HLLE it's an interesting thing to read about. Not trying to scare you but there is some fowl things that can come of carbon dust. other than that it should clear up quickly.

 

Sorry to disagree here Azocean, but HLLE or Head and lateral line erosion can be caused by tons of things, poor water quality, inadequate nutrition usually being one of the most prevalent reasons.

But never in all my years in fresh water or saltwater have I heard it being caused by carbon dust. Like I said in earlier post it shouldn't cause too much trouble but I would not make a habit out of it.

Something else, when wash out carbon you should just rinse it, you should never move it or rub it because if you do all you will secede in doing is creating more dust to wash out. Rinse it in a light stream of fresh water until the dust appears to go away then place in your tank. been doing it this way for 40 years and never had any issues.

 

It's not something that should be made a habit of doing, like stated above. But I have done this a few times and I have had my DT tank water almost black. Never had an issue, just took a little while to clear up.

If this is something you continue to do, over team I would imagine there would be some type of build up in the sump.