Mechanical filtration vs. Carbon

Treefer32

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Last Tuesday (one week ago) I went from running no socks or rollermat (for about 2-3 months) to running the new red sea 1200 on my 340 gallon system. It says I'm going through an average of 200 inches of paper per days. 15-18 ft. The roll is nearly gone with only 20 feet left as of today...

The paper is pure brown. Some said it could be lanthinum chloride dosing, but my phosphates prove as of yesterday that I didn't dose much while I had the red sea roller mat. My phosphates hit .4 testing yesterday. The previous test about 9 days ago was .24 ppm.

I remembered why I didn't dose. I wanted to see if removing debris via the roller mat would reduce phosphates. I confirmed it does not. ;)

My nitrates were elevated as well from the last test at 26 to 40 both with Hanna checkers.

My question is not about that though. Nutrients I somewhat know how to control (I say somewhat because I don't like LC as a long term solution). So, I had converted my cannister filter to full be a denitrator. I filled it with matrix rock and took out the cannister filter. Yesterday I removed all the rock (it needed a good cleaning anyways) and put the 25 micron cannister filter back in and put a bag of fresh rinsed Red Sea Carbon (came with the Rollermat) in the cannister filter (Center). And opened the flow up fully. I don't like the idea of running carbon 24/7. I keep it on hand for an emergency, but, I'm not sold on running it all the time.

The cannister filter is on my manifold from my return pump. Whereas my Red Sea Rollermat is on my 1.5" overflow pipe.

Well, tracking the usage of paper... I went from using 72" of paper over night to only using 14" of paper. Since I changed 3 variables:

1. I reduced flow through the overflow by opening up the flow through the cannister filter.
2. I increased debris removal by running the 25 micron filter on my return water (circulates back into the sump).
3. I put a bag of carbon in, which I haven't done in a very long time.

Which variable had the biggest impact on reducing the usage of paper on my Rollermat?

The reason I ask is I hate taking the 10-20 minutes to clean the cannister cartridge every 2-3 weeks. I'd like to clean the rock and put the rock back in. But if it's the cannister that is alleviating the paper usage ($30 a week vs. $30 every 2 months). If it's the carbon having the largest impact I could consider putting the cleaned rock back in and buying more carbon or Aquachar to run on an ongoing basis.

Tank is 340 gallons, sump is 75 gallons, 160 lbs of sand, and around 150 pounds of rock. Tank is exactly 4 years running as of September.
 

Biglew11

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I use a thieling compact rollermat so can only give anecdotal observation on paper usage.

When ever I've ran out of paper and changed it after a few days I notice my usage increases for a couple days then decreases back to normal after a couple days.

So you have three variables that affected your usage.

1. Time back on system to filter particles out of the water.
2. Decreased flow through the paper means less water per day to filter = less paper used.
3. Additional mechanicle filtering = less particles the rollermat has to filter out.

Which one of these 3 variables had the largest impact is hard to say.
 

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