Rena FilStar Super Activated Carbon Pouch

[lochness]

So I bought 3 packs of the Rena FilStar Super Activated Carbon Pouch - I don't use carbon often but I do like to use it every 3 mos just to remove whatever impurities that might have built up - yes I do water changes every 2 weeks of 30% - it's just a routine I have - normally I use Nitro-Zorb. Anyhow, as usual I rinsed the pouch in a bucket of tank water for a few minutes to remove dust and get the initial inking off - and placed the pouch in the canister filter as per routine. Well, as soon as I turned my filter back on - a plume of what looked like black ink spewed forth and in a matter of seconds my entire 90gal tank was BLACK - not gray not dark but BLACK as if I just dumped 50 gal of black ink into it. I immediately hooked up my Python and began to take out water as fast as I could and took out the pouch and threw it away. Carbon, as we know, is used to REMOVE odors, impurities, medications and discoloration - this one did the exact opposite. I did 2 full 100% water changes and tho better, the water is still a light gray and my albino pleco's mouth was ringed in light black. My fish were freaking out swimming this way and that (the cherry barbs were clumped in a group in the upper corner of the tank and the denison barbs were schooling from left to right in a frenzy) even my usually shy common pleco came out of his log hiding and looked poised to jump out if he could. It was horrible - I didn't think to take pictures at the time since I was freaking out myself and it took everything for me to keep my cool and do the water changes ASAP - however, I did open a 2nd pouch of the same brand of carbon and just to see if it would react the same, I first began to rinse it in a styrofoam case I use to place my filters in when maintaining them but it got so black I then switched over to my bathtub. The following pictures shows the results - I ended up not using this pouch and emailing API (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Inc) about this.





anyone ever have a situation like this with carbon?

and ty to wm_crash and justonemore for calming me down in the chatroom yesterday

[GoodMike]

i have not used the rena carbon packs. Just some advice, buy a mesh bag, and bulk carbon, fill the bag with the carbon and put it in the chamber. saves alot of money, and you dont risk that again . Thats what i have always done.

[starbuck]

is carbon required????ive never used carbon, wat does it do??

[goodie]

Holy smokes! I've never, ever seen that much get rinsed out of ANY carbon before. Talk about getting the bottom of the barrel.


BTW nice swans, we've got rubber duckies

[emc7]

Wow looks like the fine carbon you use in a Diatom XL filter. Great in a filter, but it doesn't belong in a tank.

[lochness]

Originally Posted by goodie

BTW nice swans, we've got rubber duckies

hehe thnx it was swans or bubbles at the time we moved in - bubbles looked so plain

Originally Posted by GoodMike

i have not used the rena carbon packs. Just some advice, buy a mesh bag, and bulk carbon, fill the bag with the carbon and put it in the chamber. saves alot of money, and you dont risk that again . Thats what i have always done.

I do that with peat and in the past used to do that with carbon but this time since I was buying the foams and more rings I thought *what the heck, let me grab the carbon too* <sigh>

the tank is clear again and remarkably NO sign of the black anywhere - did one more 50% water change just now for good measure.