# Rena FilStar Super Activated Carbon Pouch



## lochness (Jan 10, 2006)

So I bought 3 packs of the Rena FilStar Super Activated Carbon Pouch - I don't use carbon often but I do like to use it every 3 mos just to remove whatever impurities that might have built up - yes I do water changes every 2 weeks of 30% - it's just a routine I have - normally I use Nitro-Zorb. Anyhow, as usual I rinsed the pouch in a bucket of tank water for a few minutes to remove dust and get the initial inking off - and placed the pouch in the canister filter as per routine. Well, as soon as I turned my filter back on - a plume of what looked like black ink spewed forth and in a matter of seconds my entire 90gal tank was BLACK - not gray not dark but BLACK as if I just dumped 50 gal of black ink into it. I immediately hooked up my Python and began to take out water as fast as I could and took out the pouch and threw it away. Carbon, as we know, is used to REMOVE odors, impurities, medications and discoloration - this one did the exact opposite. I did 2 full 100% water changes and tho better, the water is still a light gray and my albino pleco's mouth was ringed in light black. My fish were freaking out swimming this way and that (the cherry barbs were clumped in a group in the upper corner of the tank and the denison barbs were schooling from left to right in a frenzy) even my usually shy common pleco came out of his log hiding and looked poised to jump out if he could. It was horrible - I didn't think to take pictures at the time since I was freaking out myself and it took everything for me to keep my cool and do the water changes ASAP - however, I did open a 2nd pouch of the same brand of carbon and just to see if it would react the same, I first began to rinse it in a styrofoam case I use to place my filters in when maintaining them but it got so black I then switched over to my bathtub. The following pictures shows the results - I ended up not using this pouch and emailing API (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Inc) about this.



















anyone ever have a situation like this with carbon?

and ty to wm_crash and justonemore for calming me down in the chatroom yesterday :fun:


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2007)

i have not used the rena carbon packs. Just some advice, buy a mesh bag, and bulk carbon, fill the bag with the carbon and put it in the chamber. saves alot of money, and you dont risk that again . Thats what i have always done.


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2007)

is carbon required????ive never used carbon, wat does it do??


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## goodie (Sep 2, 2005)

Holy smokes! I've never, ever seen that much get rinsed out of ANY carbon before. Talk about getting the bottom of the barrel.


BTW nice swans, we've got rubber duckies:lol:


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Wow looks like the fine carbon you use in a Diatom XL filter. Great in a filter, but it doesn't belong in a tank.


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## lochness (Jan 10, 2006)

goodie said:


> BTW nice swans, we've got rubber duckies:lol:




hehe thnx it was swans or bubbles at the time we moved in - bubbles looked so plain :fun:



GoodMike said:


> i have not used the rena carbon packs. Just some advice, buy a mesh bag, and bulk carbon, fill the bag with the carbon and put it in the chamber. saves alot of money, and you dont risk that again . Thats what i have always done.


I do that with peat and in the past used to do that with carbon but this time since I was buying the foams and more rings I thought *what the heck, let me grab the carbon too* <sigh>

the tank is clear again and remarkably NO sign of the black anywhere - did one more 50% water change just now for good measure.


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