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I was recently reading some info on the side of a Kent Freshwater Essential bottle and it said that carbon, resin products, and pad filters will remove trace minerals from the water. Is this true of carbon and or most filter media. I personally use zeolite with various floss pads and some bio-balls. Am I draining minerals from my water. I strive to have the best water quality, am I doing the opposite. Any information on maintaining mineral supplementation in the water is welcome as well advice on media.

Thanks

Hi,
The use of the various media for removing specific or
non specific minerals and elements from the water should
depend upon the amount in solution and the fish that you
are keeping.

For instance, many older, and some modern homes use copper
plumbing. Some fish are sensitive to copper, and as the
water sits in the pipes copper goes into solution. The
normal remedy for this is to "flush" the pipes (run the
water for 3-5 minutes) to rid the pipes of the "stale" water
and bring in fresh from the system. Some wells have
more iron than is recommended for human consumption and
the water is treated to remove it as well as other
contaminants.

As the water comes from the water treatment plant, it is
fine for aquarium usage (after removing the chlorine and/or
chloramine).

Once in the tank, with fish, excess fish food, driftwood,
and the bacteria within the gravel, waste products begin
to build up. Carbon has been added to the aquarium filters
to rid the tank of some of the organic wastes (urea, etc.)
and chemicals (medications, etc.). Carbon is so effective
that virtually every medication "suggests" that you remove
it from your filter turing the treatment period.
However, carbon is a luxury. A normally stocked, and
maintained tank (regular water changes) does not need carbon
to help keep the water clean.
If you watch what you feed the fish (read the labels) you
probably would not need phosphate removing "pillows."

Lastly, if you have a planted tank, the plants will need the
trace elements and minerals that you are removing with the
filter additives. The plants will soak them up as they
grow, holding them within normal ranges, perhaps even to
the point where you will have to add more such as the
Flourish brand of ferts.

In other words, they are generally unnecessary, expensive,
and good filtration can be had without them.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Ditto what frank said. It's another of those "it depends" situations.
I for one have plants in all my tanks (that's not of course to say that they're planted ) and so only run carbon if I've been medicating. I make sure I have some on hand for those situations and in the case of accidental contamination of one of the tanks @work.

^_^

[hr width='40%']"There&#8217;s an emptiness inside her. And she&#8217;d do anything to fill it in.
And though it&#8217;s red blood bleeding from her now. It's more like cold blue ice in her heart.
She feels like kicking out all the windows. And setting fire to this life."