Phosphate levels after carbon use...

[lpsreefer]

A lot of guys warn about the leaching of P04 when using carbon. Is there really something to worry about or is it insignificant? I’m sure it varies by brand, and I was planning on using Matrix Carbon. I use purigen now, but I can never get the chlorine smell to go away after regenerating the stuff, so I figured might be better to have something I can just throw away. Should I be worried about the P04 leached from carbon? I'm pretty particular about my tank, so I wouldn’t want to start any algae blooms or introduce anything that could cause it. Thanks for your help.

[michaeldaly]

Go with the known good brands and you will be fine, somtimes the poorer quality carbon can leach po4 into your tank.

[nyvp]

some said that black diamond had a problem for a while

[jeffbrig]

Joe, did you see something on that recently? Everything I've ever read suggested that Black Diamond was among the best carbons when it came to PO4 content. It's what I use in my tank, and I've never had any PO4 issues.

[Randall_James]

Blackdiamond did some work to fix the PO4 issues...

All the same, you can avoid a lot of headaches by rinsing and soaking new carbon before use. It will remove dust, phosphates and saturate with oxygen (it will lower 02 content in your tank)