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  1. #1
    Member Rank = Tosai j1m's Avatar
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    activated carbon

    has anyone tried running their pond water through activated carbon to reduce or get rid of the slight discolouration of pond water, and to remove polutants and pheromones that stop small fish growing when there is big fish in the same pond.
    seems fairly cheep way of getting rid. and of couse very safe but im wondering how effective.
    The small aquarium set up usually has some in a filter.
    Let me know you thoughts or experiences.



  2. #2
    Using activated carbon in an aquarium for those purposes is fairly well established and is affordable but, to scale that up to pond volumes, the volume of activated carbon would be costly.

    The discolouration is likely to be due to DOCs from overfeeding i.e. too much protein at any one feed time. Which results in partly undigested protein being excreted in the faeces.

    Carp are genetically predisposed to eat whatever they find whenever they find it. In the wild, carp don't normally find as much protein at any one time as we feed them when we feed large amounts of high protein food a few times a day, especially when we want to encourage growth. Wheat germ can also be a problem since it contains protein that is often a low digestibility form and therefore is best fed in small amounts at any one time to prevent there being too much for the gut to deal with as it passes through.

    Food passes through the gut at a steady rate and there are only a limited amount of enzymes available for catabolism (breaking down the food as the first part of the digestive process). If only small amounts of food are eaten at a time then there will be sufficient catabolic enzymes for it to be fully digested. If we feed too much high protein or low digestibility protein at any one time, there won’t be enough of these enzymes to break it all down in the limited amount of time that the food is in the gut. The result is that the food won't be fully digested and will emerge at the other end as DOC.

    You can remove DOC by protein skimmers and/orwater changes but koi food is expensive so, if a percentage is excreted undigested, it is just wasting money.

    My suggestion is that the feeding regime is the first thing that should be addressed either by feeding less food or the same total daily amount but in smaller portions spaced throughout the day. This should dramatically reduce the DOC and allow the normal DOC reducing bugs to be able to cope with DOC from pheromones and other metabolic wastes that aren't so easy to eliminate.
    Pheromones are best reduced by water changes which will reduce all pollutants including pheromones
    Last edited by Manky Sanke; 20-07-2018 at 06:09 PM.

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