Reusing Charcoal?

[spiff]

Being the cheap XXXXXX that I am, I'm interested in knowing if anyone else has tried this already...

Can the carbon be rinsed and "reactivated" by microwaving or baking?

[tropfish]

No, they require very high temps and special kilns to reactivate them, and they don't work as well the second time. You don't even need carbon in your filters as long as you do good w/cs, and you should do that even with carbon.

[spiff]

I have a filter with a pull out cartridge that has three layers, a big foam block on the bottom, a silk sock filled with carbon, the some little plastic loops that are suppose to be the bio-filter.

Should i replace the charcoal sock with more foam for more filterization then?
I do bi-weekly water changes. 70-80%

[cocoa_pleco]

definitely use more sponge. all carbon is good for is removing medications. i never use carbon in my tanks

[msjinkzd]

to be honest, i don't use any of the "prefab" cartridges in my tanks, I tend to use poly fill (pillow stuffing, $3 for a bag that will last a year) which I stuff my filters with. I also will put ceramic rings or pot scrubbers in my hob filters with the poly-fill on top. Cleans out fine particulate matter and is reusable for a very long time with just swishing in tank water. I only run carbon to remove meds. Hope that helps.

[spiff]

Gotcha.

I like the big foam block though as that should last forever with recleanings. I would worry about trace chemicals on something like getting stuffing from some other source though. They usually have formaldehyde and other chemicals.

I might even ditch the bio thingy on top at it seems pretty useless. I have my 2ft x 6ft UGF for that. Plus 80 bucks in plastic plants that are already covered in the same slime. That's my bio filter.

Cool. Looking forward to optimizing my filter. Might even ditch the pull out cartridge then too, as it doesn't have a perfect seal and some water gets around the filter. I shouldn't need it if I'm gonna use one or two huge foam blocks pushed down in there.

[gm72]

Some great advice in this thread. Most of us do not use carbon except, as stated previously, to remove medication post-treatment. Filter floss/polyfill is used often. The fear of chemicals can be alleviated simply by thoroughly rinsing the media before insertion into the filter.

Myself in my HOBs I use the stock sponge block for the first layer then the rest filled with a mesh bag filled with Ehfisynth/other similar high surface area media. Fantastic results with that configuration.