Just My Opinions On The Carbon Filters (specifically Tetra Whisper 10i)

I have these filters in my cory tank: Penn Plax World Aquarium Filter (small) and a Tetra Whisper filter 10i

Replacing those carbon cartridges a big waste of money. Even if you wanted to use carbon in your filter, there's just no need to throw out the whole thing (waste of beneficial bacteria too). Around where I live at least, Walmart sells a pretty decent size of carbon only for around $4. Honestly, I think carbon is useless. For the Penn Plax filter, I partially broke the top and bottom of the cartridge. It wasn't made to open. When the carbon runs out, I plan on replacing the carbon with fluval ceramic rings. They're pre filters, each ring lasts up to 6 months. A big box of those rings is like $3 on Amazon. The rings also help with building beneficial bacteria.

For the Tetra filter, I just have several ceramic rings in front of the sponge. Ideally, it's supposed to go behind the sponge but it reduces the flow too much and starts overflowing. Luckily these Tetra cartridges were made to open, so I'll also soon be taking out the carbon after it runs out and continue to use the sponge till it wears out and becomes unusable.

I've also noticed carbon does a pretty good job clearing up cloudy water. Back in January when I first started my tanks, the one with the whisper filter cleared up the cloudiness in 2 days. That's really what I found useful so far when it comes to carbon filters.

 

Carbon is used to clear up water of potentially toxic chemicals or to removed medicine after dosing. That's their true purpose, its good to have on hand *if/when* needed but its not necessary for daily use imo

 

Carbon is used to clear up water of potentially toxic chemicals or to removed medicine after dosing. That's their true purpose, its good to have on hand *if/when* needed but its not necessary for daily use imo

Yeah, I was using it when I first started my tanks. Post is just want I think and stuff that works for me. I didn't say they were entirely waste of time. Just for those uses you mentioned is really what I would use them for. But I wouldn't dose medicine in my main tank tho.

 

Yeah, I was using it when I first started my tanks. Post is just want I think and stuff that works for me. I didn't say they were entirely waste of time. Just for those uses you mentioned is really what I would used them for. But I wouldn't dose medicine in my main tank tho.

Sometimes its necessary to, say for ich where heat or salt aren't working. Ich is in your tank so gotta treat the whole thing.

But for most other isolated illnesses, heck yeah hospital tank. Easier to dose medicines without wasting as much product on a larger tank. Easier to monitor one fish.

 

I put polyfil in the bottom then a bag of biomax ceramic beads on top. learned from this video