HLLE and activated carbon

Aaron

Cyano
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
1. Carbon removed (I was using more than recommended in a high flow area to remove the copper).
2. Marineland carbon going in trash, switching to BRS high grade.
3. Water changed 30%.

Hopefully the problem is fixed :)
 

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
I hope that it is, but I doubt it. Most carbon that we see in the hobby comes from one source regardless of grade - the particle size can matter and can be different.

That study has been much debated all over the web. Many, many people have used carbon for years and never had any issues - myself included - before there was such a thing as high or low grade. The other stress of QT, or more likely diet, is probably more to blame for HLLE, IMO, than the GAC.

Most people neglect to feed tangs enough meat to get them the fatty acids and vitamins needed. Tangs are not herbivores - they are omnivores. Vitamans A and E are really important to them. In the olden days, we would add selcon and Zoe to add in the fatty acids and vitamins, but nowadays there are high quality flake and pellet foods that have it in there already.
 

zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#4
What are you feeding them?
 

Aaron

Cyano
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
Thanks for the discussion. Yes, I've read through the many threads on HLLE and have seen some pretty wild stuff. However, in a hobby with so much lore and as an Engineer myself I tend to gravitate towards the scientific studies. I learned this lesson the hard way when I first started the hobby years ago with using garlic to treat ich and have never trusted the lore since :)

I think this is a case of too much of a good thing can be bad. Yes, I've been using activated carbon in all 4 of my reef tanks for years without incident, and I will continue to use it but with more caution. However, this study was pretty conclusive to me that activated carbon is one cause of HLLE. In my particular case, the most probable cause. I was using over 3x the recommended of dose to remove the Cupramine. Furthermore the type of carbon I was using was Lignite (the worst in the study). I'll be switching to BRS Premium ROX carbon, which is not lignite based and much lower dust. I have an email into their customer support to find out more about the source of this type of carbon. I was planning on making the switch already had some on hand; I was just using up my cheaper Marineland lignite figuring it didn't matter.

The study did look into the effects of diet. While they were unable to correlate the effects of diet to HLLE itself a combination of poor diet and carbon was definitely the worst outcome so it shouldn't be ruled out. I still speculate that this could be more of a longer term cause. I've ensured that all of my fish in QT have an excellent diet with a lot of variety:

1. PE Mysis 2x a day mixed with Ocean Nutrition flakes and pellets.
2. Sushi grade Nori every day (damn expensive)
3. Brocolli once a week

Some valid criticisms of this study IMHO:
1. Ethics aside, I would have liked to see a much larger sample size (i.e. more tanks and more fish).
2. While the study linked activated carbon to HLLE, it did nothing to explain the biological process and why they are linked.
3. There may be many causes of the disease, we just don't know. If there's more scientific literature out there feel free to link.

Here's some good discussion between Julian Sprung and the author (see the comments section):
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/activated-carbon-affirmed-as-causative-agent-for-hlle-disease
 

zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
I would agree that the large amount of low grade GAC accelerated the hlle, I would presume that it is being caused by varying degrees of

1. QT stress. This will go away once QT is over.

2. Excess low grade GAC. Use normal dose of higher grade as you suggested.

3. Lack of fatty acids. PE mysis has very little of this. The pellets might have more, but I would suggest changing out the PE mysis. Elite reef has a good premade blend, or you can make your own. You want a good blend of seawater mysis, krill, silversides, clams, and mussels.
 

ReefCheif

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
Platinum Sponsor
#8
Theres no real proof on what casues HLLE. What we do know is it does not occur in the wild, so its absolutly something were doing in our aquarium environment. Ive never had fish contract HLLE, but i have rescued fish that have had HLLE and I can tell you Ive always ran carbon in treatment tanks., so my experince leads me to believe its not carbon that causes this. Im a firm believer alot of it has to do with stress and poor conditions.

The 3 of the fish I have rescued have come from poorly maintained and overly small tanks, which leads me to lean towards poor conditions and stress as a main factor in HLLE. If you were treating the QT tank with cupramine it leads me to believe you had some parasitic infection. The combination of being moved from DT to QT, being treated with meds and then having all that removed from the water would cause plenty of stress on any fish.

Again, this is just my experience and general assumption based of what I just read, feed good, keep happy and it will go away.
 

jahmic

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
ReefCheif;313889 said:
The combination of being moved from DT to QT, being treated with meds and then having all that removed from the water would cause plenty of stress on any fish.
This.

And to add my 2 cents...if there's any correlation with carbon, IMO it's related to the dust that can be introduced with placing carbon in your tank. Well rinsed or low dust carbon lowers your chances of having issues...but that carbon floating in the water could easily irrate/compromise the gills...and lead to HLLE. I wouldn't stop using GAC...just rinse it well. I run 2.5 gallons of fresh salt thru my reactor every time I swap my carbon out.
 

ReefCheif

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
Platinum Sponsor
#10
jahmic;313918 said:
This.

And to add my 2 cents...if there's any correlation with carbon, IMO it's related to the dust that can be introduced with placing carbon in your tank. Well rinsed or low dust carbon lowers your chances of having issues...but that carbon floating in the water could easily irrate/compromise the gills...and lead to HLLE. I wouldn't stop using GAC...just rinse it well. I run 2.5 gallons of fresh salt thru my reactor every time I swap my carbon out.
I would agree with this. Any time carbon is changed out its rinsed very well and then I too run the reactor outside the tank with fresh slatwater to get any remaining debris and dust rinsed out.
 
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