I was told by a woman I was talking to in nooppee(a shopper) that carbon can be re-acctivated. Is this true? If so how is it re-acctivated? I haven't tried it as I'm not sure if its safe. She told me to bake it. but did not specify how hot or for how long. Help please.

Hmmm....... To can try it for 1-4 minutes until it dries, but I never heard of re-ativating carbon. In my opinion I don't think it will work. I think the sign that it works, is when you put in water it fizzles. But still I don't think it will work.

I wasn't sure but it woun't hurt them, would it. If not then I'll try it. Not like chemical filtration is 100% nessesary.

Since my oven wasn't working, I used my microwave and all of a suden inside the bag I saw lights popping. If I did not catch this it will probualy have caused a fire!!!!!!

that's so funny! i wonder why the heck it fired up! hahahaha.
it's a darn ADVENTURE having fish isn't it! :monkey

sure is!

It is possible but not likely for the average person too be able too recharge activated carbon. You will definately not be able too recharge it with the average home range.
I would toss it when it is spent and use fresh activated carbon.

Some carbon can be re-activated by baking it.

Of course, carbon isn't exactly the world's most valuable product and I'd just toss it out and buy new.

Do you even NEED carbon???

This is all based off what I have read, so take it with a grain of salt. First off, carbon is useful for removing toxins in the aquarium tank. The second use of carbon is to reduce smell. You know that fishy smell that pops up? Well carbon reduces that. But the downside of carbon is once they fill up with toxins, apparently they start leaching it back in. I am not sure how exactly. Maybe if there are two toxins, and the carbon favors bonding to one, it leaches the other. I don't know.

As for recharging it... I have found through web searches that its basically out of reach of many home aquarists. You basically have to bake it in a kiln (i.e. for pottery) in order to get a temperature high enough to burn off the absorbed toxins. So its just cheaper to buy new, in bulk, or not at all.

Cheers!

So basically I can just emty my filters of the carbon if I don't mind the smell. I do ALOT of water changes so really smell or build-up isn't a problem.

There are benefits to carbon but yeah, pretty much.

Myself, I'm slowly replacing my carbon with ceramic media.