RE: activated carbon in filters?

Question

Thanks for all the answers, i surmise that carbon is NOT the best way to remove toxins. I run a catfish farm, and have been having trouble with the breeding stage. The fish die off after between 6 or 14 days. weve always used direct flow through, borehole water, but i suspect the water comes in with some toxins. now i want to change to a recirculatory system. what then can i put in the filter that will remove toxins? locally i can get zeolite, and also calcite. will they help?

Answer 1

Your best bet is to get a toxin screen on your water, obviously from a local school or extension service to first identify what you are dealing with. Depending on the depth and location of your watershed you could have any number of toxins that could be the source of the problem and the first step needs to be identifying the toxins responsible before prescribing a cure. Then you can check into various options for removal or detoxification. For example, if you are dealing with a metal toxicity it may be possible to bind it out chemically to detoxify instead of a complete removal process while an organic toxin problem could possibly be burned out with potassium permanganate or something similar prior to using the water. Carbon, zeolite and calcite are all possible solutions, depending on the exact nature of the problem.

You may also look into potential feed problems for fish of that age. All too often flow through systems reduce the amount of algae and infusorians to a low enough level to prevent the fry from being able to feed well.

Feel free to email me if I can be of assistance.

MM

Answer 2

As we had discussed, the amounts of water you are using from the bore hole really need to be tested first. Once this is done you can determine what exactly is causing the toxins. As is with the lime used to raise the PH of your water. Perhaps impuritites came from the lime itself. Since this has only recently became a problem. However one thing I just thought of, the bore hole you are pulling water from, has anything in the local are changed in the past month or two? New housing, digging rearranging of land surface new roads? Outside sources could also play a roll in runoff.

Test first. Let me know what you find out.