Not sure if this is the right forum for this, I'm sure they will move it for me if I guessed wrong

When you use carbon to remove meds from the water, how much do you need, and how long do you need to use it for, does anyone know?

How large is your filter? You are supposed to remove the carbon from your filter before adding medication. When the medication is done, and the disease is gone, you place the carbon back into your filter.

See but, I don't use carbon in my filter normally.

I've heard 12-24 hours to remove meds.

Any filter I have seen comes with carbon packets premeasured. What kind of filter do you have?

A carbon sac comes out of the aquarium when the med. is in the water.

You said you don't use the carbon usually - I am not saying that your aquarium is doing badly, I'm not even suggesting it, your aquarium could be healthy, but carbon is a good idea. It cleans the water.

My suggestion is that you use the carbon for a few days, maybe.

Some meds require a little more carbon to remove them from the water than others. You have to realize what the carbon is doing. "Activated" carbon has small "holes" or bonding sites in it that attach the medications to them. Once the meds are "hooked" onto the carbon they are effectively removed from the water. Carbon only has so many of these bonding sites per piece of carbon - once they are full, the carbon can no longer bind any more medication from the water.

It really takes very little carbon to do this.....if you look at the ready made filter cartridges that come with carbon in them, they only have about a Tablespoon of carbon in a large filter pad. This is more than adequate to clean the tank. If you purchase a container of carbon to use, I would suggest putting approximately a tablespoon per 20 gallons in a small nylon stocking foot and dropping in the filter for 1-2 days. This should remove all meds splendidly. Some may need slighly more.

You really can do little harm in using too much carbon......that which is not used is not harming anything either. I usually probably use too much.

There are also carbon filter pads that you can buy - they are black and look just like filter pads otherwise. These can slip right into a filter or as a layer in a canister.

The good thing about carbon is that, even when all the bonding sites are used, the carbon is still useful as a bacterial platform for your good bacteria to colonize on.....so you can either leave it in or take it out. It makes little diffference. I do not use carbon in my filters on a regular basis, but if I have had some in there for one reason or another, I usually leave it until it is time to change things around a lot......