HLLE and carbon dust removal.

Jay Hemdal · Dec 2, 2023

jda said:
I have used GAC at times for 30 years. No HLLE. Coconut shell, bitumulous and pellet mostly. Wash it well, don't let it tumble and avoid Lignite if you feel bad about it. Lignite could just as easily release something that is a problematic just as much as it was dust/fine - both could get filtered. Was the dust/fine ever found in areas of the fish that were an issue during autopsy?

Does anybody know what is in ROX? A cocktail, I would guess?

Yes - after I published my study, I was contacted by a researcher in California who had incidentally found carbon fines in the lateral line pores of some fish using SEM. Trouble is, he didn't write it up as that wasn't part of his study at the time.

I should add that the team at Disney feels that it isn't the dust per-se, but that carbon removes organics, which are normally bonded to heavy metals, rendering them less toxic. They feel that removing those organics allows for higher free heavy metal levels and THAT causes the HLLE. Two issues with that hypothesis: 1) in our study, we used newly mixed seawater that had no heavy metal issues and 2) if marine fish are challenged with heavy metals (copper or zinc anyway), they don't develop HLLE (grin).

People using carbon and not seeing HLLE is pretty common in the reef community. As my write-up says, there are exports of POC (including carbon fines) in reef tanks such as protein skimmers and the filter feeding invertebrates that tend to reduce the issue. We did find that even pelleted carbon caused HLLE lesions, but they were smaller and only showed up during histopathology.

Jay

jda · Dec 3, 2023

Jay Hemdal said:
Yes - after I published my study, I was contacted by a researcher in California who had incidentally found carbon fines in the lateral line pores of some fish using SEM. Trouble is, he didn't write it up as that wasn't part of his study at the time.

I should add that the team at Disney feels that it isn't the dust per-se, but that carbon removes organics, which are normally bonded to heavy metals, rendering them less toxic. They feel that removing those organics allows for higher free heavy metal levels and THAT causes the HLLE. Two issues with that hypothesis: 1) in our study, we used newly mixed seawater that had no heavy metal issues and 2) if marine fish are challenged with heavy metals (copper or zinc anyway), they don't develop HLLE (grin).

People using carbon and not seeing HLLE is pretty common in the reef community. As my write-up says, there are exports of POC (including carbon fines) in reef tanks such as protein skimmers and the filter feeding invertebrates that tend to reduce the issue. We did find that even pelleted carbon caused HLLE lesions, but they were smaller and only showed up during histopathology.

Jay

The other types of carbon are plenty good at removing organics too.

That should crush the organic removal theory. Was Disney all lignite, or did they have issues with other types?

There were some cheap salts 10-15 years ago that allegedly had heavy metals in them. Kent, Coralife and a few like that. I am just going off of a local guy who had a lab that tested some of them - . If you used Aquarium Pharm like many other institutions, then no issue.

Jay Hemdal · Dec 3, 2023

jda said:
The other types of carbon are plenty good at removing organics too. That should crush the organic removal theory. Was Disney all lignite, or did they have issues with other types?

There were some cheap salts 10-15 years ago that allegedly had heavy metals in them. Kent, Coralife and a few like that. I am just going off of a local guy who had a lab that tested some of them - . If you used Aquarium Pharm like many other institutions, then no issue.

From what I recall, Disney used lignite carbon also.

We used freshly mixed Instant Ocean, same as in our other fish systems.

There is a related issue called "epithelial thinning" that is seen in some fish (groupers for example). That has been shown to be caused by heavy metal toxicity - a paper in Australia was published where the fish got it from contaminated well water being used at a fish farm.

There was another study at the same time that never got published, the researcher was trying to test the hypothesis that a lack of vitamin C causes HLLE (that idea has been around since the 1980's). However, during the study, a student decided to use carbon to clear up the water in the control fish tank and they all got HLLE (grin).

Jay

jason2459 · Dec 3, 2023

I stopped used GAC many years ago after getting my yellow belly blue P. hepatus var. I have had other tangs with no issue but this yellow belly developed HLLE after I introduced GAC and stopped getting worse after removal.

I would have been using acid washed lignite or ROX as I used both in the past. It came on pretty quickly as well.

It looked pretty bad but after about 8 years has recovered but does still have an eroded front dorsal fin that will probably always be that way. I also had a chocolate, yellow eye kole, and a desjardini. None of those showed any sign of HLLE.

jda · Dec 3, 2023

Jay Hemdal said:
From what I recall, Disney used lignite carbon also.

We used freshly mixed Instant Ocean, same as in our other fish systems.

There is a related issue called "epithelial thinning" that is seen in some fish (groupers for example). That has been shown to be caused by heavy metal toxicity - a paper in Australia was published where the fish got it from contaminated well water being used at a fish farm.

There was another study at the same time that never got published, the researcher was trying to test the hypothesis that a lack of vitamin C causes HLLE (that idea has been around since the 1980's). However, during the study, a student decided to use carbon to clear up the water in the control fish tank and they all got HLLE (grin).

Jay

FWIW - once I started to use Zoe and Selcon many years ago, I only ever had one fish get HLLE since (ironically A. Bahianus in a system with no carbon which showed no issue and outgrew my tanks and went to a 10k gallon commercial system). This was back when like you went to the the asian-market and make your own food and the Tetra DoroMarin pellet days. The new foods are better and I don't add anything now. I would swear that there is something in those supplements that helped a ton - A, E and the HUFAs is what i always heard... but I don't know. I just just that they worked.