Carbon

[Haynes'ey]

As some of you will know I am a newbie and have been cycling my tank for 5
weeks now, I am running 2 Fluval 4 plus filters.

After my spikes in my cycle I never really thought that the water was very
clear always a sort of cloudiness to the back of the tank, on Thursday I
added a carbon sponge to one of the filters and today the water is crystal
clear.

What do you think it has done, any ideas?

Haynes'ey, Questions Questions Questions sorry folks but I want to get it
right.

--
Haynes'ey.

[Douglas Barber]

Haynes'ey wrote:

> As some of you will know I am a newbie and have been cycling my tank for 5
> weeks now, I am running 2 Fluval 4 plus filters.
>
> After my spikes in my cycle I never really thought that the water was very
> clear always a sort of cloudiness to the back of the tank, on Thursday I
> added a carbon sponge to one of the filters and today the water is crystal
> clear.
>
> What do you think it has done, any ideas?

The carbon has absorbed organic compounds that were tinting the water.
You can have water with zero ammonia, nitrites and nitrates (you cycled
your tank in order to bring those down by establishing colonies of
bacteria, and only the bacteria or "biological filter", not carbon, can
remove those compounds from the water)that's still cloudy.

Possibly the cloudiness resulted from a die-off of a temporary
overpopulation of bacteria that grew to a level capable of processing
the "spiked" levels of ammonia, etc, then had to die back to a level
that could sustain itself on the non-spiked average daily quantity of
those compounds that gets introduced into your system.