# What brand of carbon is good? Carbon Filtration



## NursePlaty (Feb 5, 2010)

Im trying to make my own cartridges instead of buying expensive premade ones. I looked at the LFSs today and saw many brands. Example: Marineland brand of charcoal is a lot more expensive then the API's brand. 
Anyone have suggestions of which brand i should buy?


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## aspects (Feb 22, 2009)

dont waste your money. 
carbon is completely unnecessary unless you are using it to remove chemical medication from your tank. youre better off saving your money for something beneficial.


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## NursePlaty (Feb 5, 2010)

i thought it removed all the unnecessary particles from the water system that the mechanical filtration cant remove. such as the material that clouds the water and such things like that


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## Toad (Oct 6, 2009)

From what I've read on this forum, it appears that activated carbon is only good for a week or two. After that you just have black rocks in your filter.


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## Mikolas (Jan 16, 2010)

Also if you intend to add live plants to the tank, carbon apparently only inhibits their growth considering that they take out a lot of the chemicals that the plants can use.

Thus, from what I've been reading, if you are using live plants, carbon isn't necessary since plants can do much of the chemical filtration.


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