To run or not to run carbon full time on a reef? lateral line disease?

[Christopher Davis]

Hey guys whats the best thing to do in a reef of age? should I run carbon every once in a while or full time or not at all. I have heard it messes up tangs pretty good. What are the other alternatives besides water changes if there are any? I am also running Phosgaurd right now full time are there any issues with that? or both of them together?

 

[cjd]

Unfortunately there is no definitive answer other then your tank will tell you. Do you have tangs showing signs of lateral line disease? Many reefers run carbon all the time (me included) some part time and plenty none at all. I think part of the problem with carbon is thinking more must be better . A situation I had with my frag tank was I couldn't get a green monti to color up , it was growing slowly but very pale . Parameters were all in line so for the heck of it I measured out the proper carbon instead of just dumping some in a bag and calling it good. Using BRS carbon calculator I only need a tablespoon of carbon for the amount of water volume and I was probably using a 1/4 cup or more tossed in a bag. needles to say with a week it started to color up . Same with any phosphate reducing media. It all has its place but must be used properly.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, I'd run an acid washed carbon such as ROX 0.8 rather than some other brands for this potential reason, but I agree it is not definitive.

I had problems with tangs using Marineland Black diamond and not ROX, but I also stopped using ozone. It might have been the ozone, the carbon, or both together.

 

[WetWhistle]

I have never had issues running carbon with tangs or any fish and I have been running it constantly for decades. Normally if you give tangs a balanced diet they don't get lateral line disease as it looks like the disease is a combination of improper diet and other factors and not a single cause. In my experience the times I have seen peoples tangs get lateral line disease is when they had been fed to many meaty foods and not enough greens and when a major change happened they got it. When they got it and they were fed spirulina soaked in a product like AminOmega by BrightWells that is high in HUFAs the lateral line disease went away with only some scaring. Depending on how bad it originally was some left no scars.

@Randy I have seen a few people's fish get lateral line disease after removing Ozone that they had run on their tank for years. It possibly has something to do with a reduced immune system from the clean water and lack of any pathogens in the water from the use of Ozone. So temporarily after it was removed the immune system didn't function properly as it was not used to having to function at higher levels and fight off anything. Once the Ozone was removed they got sick easily till the immune system returned to normal functional level after a month or so. This is just something I have observed as I did a bout of Ozone testing years ago and when I removed the Ozone all the fish got sick. Yet all the other fish that I had perched at the same time once they were all put together did not at all. I read an article years ago that postulated the effects of Ozone and reduced function of the immune system as well. But have never read up on it since so I have no idea if they ever proved it or not.

 

[zoomonster]

The scourge of tangs... There have been no major changes in my current tank (now at 2yr mark) but my yellow belly hippo has a pretty good case and my purple tang just started showing some spots around eyes. First time for purple and I had him about 1.5yrs. The hippo has had it a little longer and has full onset head to tail. I also have a new juvi blue powder I want to keep healthy. I use GFO, ozone and I was using BRS small particle lignite(noted for more dust) which I just stopped using altogether. From what I can gather from a variety of sources the many factors cause holds true. I think I have eliminated most of those including carbon, stray voltage, high nitrates and diet. Like I've said elsewhere some of those carbons, no matter how well rinsed, dump carbon dust in the tank some perhaps smaller than what a 100-200 micron sock would catch. Where that evidence really shows up is the black smudges in the bottom of my skimmer cup. So if carbon is truly a problem its there and I'm prone to believe that water contamination from the dust is more the issue than carbon use cleaning the water. The BRS calculator just based on my tank size of 200 says I should only be running 1.88 cups. I ran a little more than that in my reactor and I always kept a large bag under the output of my skimmer for residual ozone and to silence the water output so maybe too much. My advise would be if you are going to use carbon use some sort of pelletized carbon product rinsed very well.

If anything else was a primary cause maybe diet. I have 30+ fish and I've probably been guilty of feeding to much meat vs. veggies. Of course my tangs are pigs and eat whatever I give them. They have always gotten nori, some veggie flakes and occasionally romaine but probably not consistently enough. Now they are always getting a sheet a day of purple or green alternating and some red. Plus I always use selcon on the nori sheets. The whole tank also gets a variety of flake, pellet and frozen food (primarily Hikari mysis). Most of the flake and pellets contain spirulina.

Good thought on also using fish amino's. I'll have to add that to the mix.

 

[WetWhistle]

That sucks you are having an issue. At least you started eliminating some of the causes. I found that stray voltage was a good contributor for sure. Hopefully the amino's help and you kick this in the butt. Keep us posted.