Do NOT use PETCO Carbon

[Relled]

Hi All,

Changed my carbon usage to Petcos coconut carbon media. Just bought this product on a whim and tossed it in the reef tank. Leached heavy metals like copper into the tank and nuked the whole thing in 2 days. I was frantically testing the regular parameters to no avail. Realized this after seeing this refers reddit post yesterday "Aftermath of petco carbon", does not seem like i can link it. Anyway my whole CUC instantly died like this persons and im devastated loosing my poor pets and corals. Had some extremely hard to replace pieces in the tank...over 2k worth of livestock.

I've called into petco to report but obviously you just talk to a customer service rep and likely nothing will happen to make this right.

 

[Fish Fan]

I'm sorry about your difficulties with your tank.

I do know another member was just complaining about PetCo carbon, perhaps that's the source of the reddit thread??

I don't know if the PetCo carbon was responsible for your trouble, I do think a lot of R2R members use their carbon. What testing did you do to determine that you have heavy metals like copper in your system?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How much were you using and did you rinse it?

Have you added any metal binding media?

 

[Relled]

For my reefing family. Left side. RODI with petco coconut carbon media bag left in bucket overnight. Right side , fresh RODI as a control. Hoping i can save someone's tank.

 

[Relled]

How much were you using and did you rinse it?

Have you added any metal binding media?

Didn't measure exactly but yes I rinsed it. Above photo i also rinsed before tossing in a bucket with RODI!

 

[Fish Fan]

For my reefing family. Left side. RODI with petco coconut carbon media bag left in bucket overnight. Right side , fresh RODI as a control. Hoping i can save someone's tank.

Compelling result, but I don't understand how there's copper in aquarium carbon made form coconut shells. I'm sure @Randy Holmes-Farley will have greater insight, and I know @BeanAnimal is also knowledgeable about the process used to make aquarium carbon, maybe he'll have some idea what's going on.

 

[TankYouVeryMuch]

This is should be a sticky post or something. I’ve now heard from at least half a dozen other people that their tank got nuked immediately after using Petco carbon, and this is the second to be confirmed with testing. I ultimately had to replace all of the rock and sand in my tank due to a bad batch, and spent a lot of other money trying to remedy the issue before I knew the cause.

Someone should start a class action lawsuit.

 

[Relled]

This is should be a sticky post or something. I’ve now heard from at least half a dozen other people that their tank got nuked immediately after using Petco carbon, and this is the second to be confirmed with testing. I ultimately had to replace all of the rock and sand in my tank due to a bad batch, and spent a lot of other money trying to remedy the issue before I knew the cause.

Someone should start a class action lawsuit.

I personally lost thousands of dollars. And have a quarter jar left. Id be willing to send to an actual lab.

 

[Tellie-Vision]

More people need to be aware of this carbon! I lost thousands of dollars of SPS after adding it to my tank last month!

 

[TankYouVeryMuch]

Maybe reach out and see if they respond: https://www.petco.com/content/petco/PetcoStore/en_US/pet-services/help/email-web-form.html

 

[Relled]

Maybe reach out and see if they respond: https://www.petco.com/content/petco/PetcoStore/en_US/pet-services/help/email-web-form.html

Nice joke. I have done this and tried emailing the CEO. No response from anyone.

 

[Major Havoc]

Sounds like a bad manufacturing process.

 

[dvgyfresh]

I am so sorry for everyone’s losses , it may be a bad batch I used that stuff for a year in this tank granted I had no sps

 

[archipelago]

For my reefing family. Left side. RODI with petco coconut carbon media bag left in bucket overnight. Right side , fresh RODI as a control. Hoping i can save someone's tank.

Good god man!

 

[Relled]

Good god man!

Tough to recover from this one. I ended up needing to do more than a full swap of water volume only saved a couple frags in the whole tank. Tank still looks terrible, but im reading 0 copper now.

Shout-out to my CT reefing family, looking forward to frag farmers market and the new event in newtown more than ever this year!! trying to stay positive.

 

[Major Havoc]

I hope they start a recall of the product.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Compelling result, but I don't understand how there's copper in aquarium carbon made form coconut shells. I'm sure @Randy Holmes-Farley will have greater insight, and I know @BeanAnimal is also knowledgeable about the process used to make aquarium carbon, maybe he'll have some idea what's going on.

I can dig into it more, but activation is often done through various processes including high pressure steam or acid washing. I would assume some of the activation methods may include copper based solutions. I know that phosphoric acid is often used, but have also read that zinc chloride and other chemicals are also common.

For aquarium use, we only want steam activated carbon. Given supply chain transparency issues, vendors may not actually know what process is used to activate the carbon that they are repackaging for the hobby. This holds true even if they specify that they want to buy steam activated only. This problem is not isolated to carbon, or this hobby.

 

[Fish Fan]

I can dig into it more, but activation is often done through various processes including high pressure steam or acid washing. I would assume some of the activation methods may include copper based solutions. I know that phosphoric acid is often used, but have also read that zinc chloride and other chemicals are also common.

For aquarium use, we only want steam activated carbon. Given supply chain transparency issues, vendors may not actually know what process is used to activate the carbon that they are repackaging for the hobby. This holds true even if they specify that they want to buy steam activated only. This problem is not isolated to carbon, or this hobby.

Thanks, Bean!

 

[Relled]

I can dig into it more, but activation is often done through various processes including high pressure steam or acid washing. I would assume some of the activation methods may include copper based solutions. I know that phosphoric acid is often used, but have also read that zinc chloride and other chemicals are also common.

For aquarium use, we only want steam activated carbon. Given supply chain transparency issues, vendors may not actually know what process is used to activate the carbon that they are repackaging for the hobby. This holds true even if they specify that they want to buy steam activated only. This problem is not isolated to carbon, or this hobby.

Hope this catches the eye of some vendors so they can make sure they are responsibly sourcing.

The copper concentration is high enough I mixed some testing soultion in a tube of rodi tossed in two carbon pellets straight out of the container and and orange tint developed within 2 minutes. Not even overnight soaking is needed to see how bad this is

 

[Kianou]

Hi All,

Changed my carbon usage to Petcos coconut carbon media. Just bought this product on a whim and tossed it in the reef tank. Leached heavy metals like copper into the tank and nuked the whole thing in 2 days. I was frantically testing the regular parameters to no avail. Realized this after seeing this refers reddit post yesterday "Aftermath of petco carbon", does not seem like i can link it. Anyway my whole CUC instantly died like this persons and im devastated loosing my poor pets and corals. Had some extremely hard to replace pieces in the tank...over 2k worth of livestock.

I've called into petco to report but obviously you just talk to a customer service rep and likely nothing will happen to make this right.

this is what happen to my tank to all my lps coral died what's left is my leather coral. I used the same carbon product I baught at petco and it nukes my tank in just 24hrs. they should not sell that kind of product anymore