Opinions: Use of Activated Carbon

[bzotter]

I was wondering how people felt about using activating carbon as part of the filtration system for a combination fish/reef tank. I know it does an excellent job of making the water crystal clear, but are there any downsides to its use? i.e. does it remove anything from the water that you wouldn't want to remove? Thanks.

[Holyreefer]

I know its a pain to use, because you have to change it out like every month and you can't reuse any of it.
If your thinking about or are dosing ozone it is also suggested to use it.

Also there is a guy in the large tank forums who bought like a 50 pound bag of carbon for like 90 bucks. See if you can find him as i was n't able to

[reef_doug]

I run carbon 24/7. I change it every 3-4 weeks. I use 1.5 cups in a 180g volume. It's better to use less and change it more often than quite a bit and have it sit longer than 6 wks.

Downsides... can leach PO4 back after 6 wks or so.
Too much can also take out some of the good trace elements, although this not really an issue if you use about 1/2 c per 50 gal and do your 10% water change weekly or so.