Do you need charcoal??

[drakebuffie]

Other than seeing posts about hole in head in tangs being caused by charcoal what is the purpose of running it or not? I ran it for a couple weeks setting up my tank and am now considering not putting any back in.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

It can remove contaminants from the water and can clear your water well...if it's a new tank and you've always used it you might not notice

 

[Wasabiroot]

Carbon? It's definitely a positive typically unless you're running an extremely heavy nutrient tank. It clears the water and reduces the amount of organics and toxins floating around. Is it absolutely necessary? No, you can get by with water changes, but if changed on a semi-regular basis the pros outweigh the cons for sure.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Other than seeing posts about hole in head in tangs being caused by charcoal what is the purpose of running it or not? I ran it for a couple weeks setting up my tank and am now considering not putting any back in.

It removes organic chemicals and toxins/posions that many creatures produce. When added appropriately (properly cleaned, and properly sized to how much water is in the tank) and changed regularly, I think its a pretty good thing to have, although definitely not 100% needed.

 

[PatW]

If you have soft corals, they produce toxins to suppress other corals. Charcoal is good at removing such things.

Also various wastes in the water can give the water a brown cast making the tank look less attractive. You can test this by looking at water from a water change in a white bucket. Clean water should have a slight blue cast to it. Dingy water can have a decided brown cast. If it is bad enough to be irksome, running charcoal in a reactor will clear it up.

I do not do that many water changes and my water has a very slight cast but nothing that really matters to me. So I very rarely run charcoal.