Any guidance on activated carbon for med removal?

[Pepere]

Anybody have any idea how long it takes for activated carbon to remove quarantine meds?

 

after a course of meds I usually do a 50% water change and run a box filter with activated carbon and a wee bit of filter floss.  I usually follow up with another 50% water change 3-4 days later.  
 

I am curious as to how effective activated carbon is at removing meds.  Have any studies been done?

[nabokovfan87]

I usually run it for 7-10 days. 

I spent some time looking, This is the best I can give ya.
https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/features/be-clear-about-carbon/

[Pepere]

Well….

 

I pulled my activated carbon out tonight.  I had just put it in this morning after doing a 50% water change since my 8 White Skirt Tetra finished first week of quarantine with med trio.

Tonight when I went to feed them and observe them, their fins and tails are covered with ich spots.   No sign of spots before tonight, but I had noticed 1 of them was not eating well.  It mostly would just swim around as the other fish ate well.

 

pulled the filter with the carbon, turned up the temp, added some Aquarium Salt, pulled out all of the floating plants and treated with first dose of Ich X.

 

I am definitely less than thrilled…

[AllFishNoBrakes]

@Pepere My Marbled Hatchetfish got ich after the trio, but before I moved them to the community tank thankfully! Higher temp and aquarium salt at 1 tablespoon per 2 gallons of water did the trick nicely 

[Pepere]

I do a minimum of 6 weeks of quarantine before transfer to display tank.

This batch will likely be at least 8 weeks….

[AllFishNoBrakes]

@Pepere When I was first setting up all my tanks I was doing 1 week of meds and then MAYBE another week as I was so excited to keep building and get the next batch of fish. The Hatches getting ich definitely made me slow down. Now I’m not in a rush and quarantine until I feel confident everything is good. Plus, I’m not really bringing in fish much these days. 

[Pepere]

The temptation to shorten quarantine is constantly fought. 
 

I currently have 1, 29 gallon tank mostly stocked.  Another 29 has a few fish in it as does a 20 high.

i keep3, 10 gallon quarantine tanks, and that helps in terms of being able to stagger new purchases and transferring to display tanks. It takes some of the urgency away as  I transfer some every 2-3 weeks.