Too much Carbon?

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mythesis

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Is there such thing as using too much carbon in a sump?

Some of my corals still look grumpy. I was figuring to do another 10-20% water change and then putting a second bag of carbon in the sump. Wasn't sure if there was such a thing as too much. I'm at a loos for what's wrong other than there must be some kind of irritant in the water somehow.

I added some chaeto to try to reduce nutrients, and Nitrates have gone down from 10->4; Phosphates still hovering around 0.5 --- these are pretty much in line with the last several months. Calcium is a little low at 380, but it's been there for the life of the tank, so I don't think that's the source of the irritant.

I've reduced the light (had done a 30 day acclimation from 70->85%; restarting at 65% and doing a 40 day acclimation).

I think low flow (anemone guards got clogged up) & low temps (house switched from cool to heat and ambient temp dropped 3-4 degrees) kicked off the initial round of badness, but things still look unhappy. I'm trying to not overreact and let things play out slowly. Updated the heater settings and removed the guards (we don't even have an anemone...).

I removed the algae scraper in case there was some kind of leeching.

So...is it ok to double up the carbon?

But the torch and frogspawn are still pretty clearly irritated.
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So just for reference I have approximately 60gal system and I use 2 tablespoons of GAC in a bag in the sump and I change it every 4 weeks.

Yes there is such a thing as too much GAC. It binds things, can strip the water, it also clears water so the light penetrates better and that can shock corals.
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For filtration I only use skimmer and GAC.

Less shock is preferred by corals.

Good luck,
 

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