FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I have a question. From what Ive been reading, plants, specially floating plants seem to be a great filter to eliminate things such as heavy metals and what not from the water.

My question is, is this basically the same job that charcoal does in a tank?

I ask this because of the pond I have in the backyard and the amount of activated carbon that I have to be purchasing to put in the filter.

The filter I have on it was made by myself with tupperwares, I have in it charcoal, ceramic ring thingies and the white clothy , cottony thing, not sure the name of it. The filter is fed by two powerheads. My question is, am I basically putting charcoal in there for nothing if the hyacinths are doing their own thing or is it really necessary.

As always, appreciate it.

George.

From the articles I have read and mainly because of my own experences, the only time I see a need for charcoal is when I need to remove meds...from the tanks. Other than the bio ring and floss thats all I run. If you would have asked me that question a year ago i would have seid use the charcoal, being from the old school ideals of filtration, but did some testing on a few tanks and don't see any difference and when you have a few tanks you looking to save anywhere possible. I getting ready to set up 2 tanks and I'm going to setup one with and one without, to see the effects on a newly started tank. They both will end up with not using it, but I want to see if any effects on the cyccle process.

This being a pond and I have to assume it outside, my only concern would be all the pollutants that come from the rain water and leaching that occurs in run off water. If you in an industrail area, or the the flight path of the airport they maybe more than the plants can handle. So over a peroid of time they may build up to dangerous levels, in nature ponds have water that flows in and out, which carries a lot of pollutants down stream and dilutes them to mangable levels for the plants. I assume you don't do monthly water changes on the pond like in a tank so there could be that possibilty

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams

Hey Dj, you're right. I have 10 tanks set up, the largest being 50g but still, things really accumulate in a hurry. I'm not exactly cheap but I cant spend everything I have on these things and Id rather not buy something I dont need, like charcoal if the pond is full of hyacinths and they're doing some filtering.

Living in CR, Im not exactly in an industrial area, the pond is outside and I dont do water changes as it is in direct sunlight so I have to be replacing water often.

The pond right now is covered in either hyacinths, water lettuce (which has yellowish spots) and azolla, the azolla has just about all turned red so it gives it an interesting color. My folks dont like it because they cant see the fish but it looks as natural as it could be to me.