best replacement for carbon in fliter for planted tank

[mellowvision]

so, I've ended up with 2 Tom Mini Rapids Canister filters, that I will be using on my 10gallon planted tank and my 15 gallon paludarium. the filters look great, really nice quality, and after talking to the people at Tom's, I'd say awesome customer service... I'm really happy with the purchase. The filter has 2 compartments, one for ceramic media and one for a floss fabric bag full of activated carbon dust.

1. what's the pros/cons of using the carbon/floss bag
2. what would be the best replacement for it, if I move away from carbon?

I'm thinking foam would work well and be easy to clean, and maybe wrapping the foam with floss where the water exits... but I'm not exactly sure why I want to do this, guess i've read people not wanting to use carbon in their planted tank filters, but not sure why.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

1 carbon helps remove stuff from water. i dont run it but i see no cons other then coast.

2 a sponge or floss. i would replace both of them with floss and or sponges. if its planted your plants will be a good bio filter.

 

[plantling]

I don't use carbon in my planted tank. I think it's only used mainly to filter out any med's and harmful chemicals, which usually don't exist in a normal tank.

 

[geofied]

I think the Carbon avoidance by plant folks is due mostly to the fact that it is unnecessary. I do run it occasionally since my whisper replacement cartridges have it by default. I also will run a bit of used carbon when doing my tank start-ups to help clear things up. Also could help control smell if an algae bloom is in high gear.

In my Aqua Clear filters I much prefer putting an extra sponge filter in place of my carbon, allows me to keep lots of seed material around in case I have a new tank to start.

 

[KnaveTO]

Carbon removes chemicals from a tank. I would think that it could not destinguish between harmful and beneficial chemicals so the ferts you could be adding to a planted tank might be removed by the carbon. Furthermore you need to replace carbon frequently as once they have reached their maximum absorbsion capacity they stop working and in fact start releasing the chemicals back into the water that they absorbed if left in too long.

 

[UCF-Planted]

I replace my carbon with polyfil. I use carbon when I want to remove meds, but when there are no meds I want to remove particulate matter, so polyfil as a nice way to get the water crystal clear.