The Puffer Forum

Smoking doesn't make sense to begin with. It's an addiction and reasoning just doesn't work. Personally, I'm allergic to smoke so I have pretty strong feelings on the subject but responsible and respectful smokers don't bother me much. I can't spend time with them but I respect their choices. It's unfortunate that there are so few respectful smokers out there compared to disrespectful.

I've only met J-P once but I think he's one of the respectful smokers so at least he isn't poisoning those around him too much.

This thread wasn't intended to be a focus on my smoking habits.

I know--can't help it.

An addiction is an addiction, and as such is beyond or outside of reason. I have my own- such as tanks and plants (but no fragrant ones indoors or for that matter near the house or upwind outdoors).

I want to thank you for posting the link to this article. I have known that stuff in the air will get trapped in my tank water. Did NOT know some of the chemical names to look out for and found that interesting. I also wonder now about powdered carpet fresheners. No I don't put it on the carpet to the point that walking across the room you look like "Pig-Pen" from Charlie Brown but what happens when you vacuum it up and the fine particles get into the air? Dangerous to the fish?? Potentially? I don't know, but makes me think twice.

Also the article gives me a hard copy of someone else's opinions to use as reinforcement to keep the kids and husband from using my fish equipment for anything other than my tanks.

That smoke residue is also helpful to keep my brother-in-law out of my house. With the cigarettes I mean.

EDIT: Those of you with the carbon in the filters.... Where is your intake on the filter? Mine are near the bottom of the tank.... so before the toxic stuff can be cleared from the water I would think it would need to travel all the way down to the filter intake before running through the filter and getting trapped in the carbon. That to me seems like a long time for the fish to be exposed to it. Easier to keep it out of the water in the first place. Just my opinion and it may be wrong, just my opinion.

In most situations carbon filtration intake is trivial -at least for me. My tanks all have some degree of current, usually fine-tuned and involving 3-5+ different current sources. My tanks have very uniform water mixing, with varied flow in different areas and absolutely zero dead spots. Current is one of my neuroses.

All that said, I only rarely use carbon filtration. Another of my neuroses is water changes - I am a nut on the topic and more than a bit compulsive. water is cheaper than carbon and broader-spectrum. When i remove and replace 50% of the water, I am removing 50% of all undesirable dissolved and suspended materials, along with replacing 50% of any desired materials which have been use up in normal tank operation. No woris about is the carbom saturaed or not, or i it capable of capturing the undesirables, I just replace 50% routinely. If a tank seems off or not quite right, I will likely do that every other day for week. Yes, I go through a lot of water, but it is till less expensive than using carbon chronically or routinely. If your tank mixes at all well (which is required for decent filtration in any case), where the intakes are is trivial. Mechanical filter intakes are likely to be most effective with low-in-the-column intakes. Biofiltration intakes are likely to be best mid-level or higher in the water column, but with good prefiltration (mechanical and/or chemical) the intake level is trivial. Ditto for chemical filtration - the intake level is trivial IF there is good mechanical filtration before the chemical filter.

As for protecting the tank from air-borne particulates, glass tops are key. Remove them and rinse off routinely, drying before replacing them. That is a small part of their normal weekly water partials. This is an area where the quality of your HVAC system's mechanical/electrostatic/chemical filtration does impact your tanks. Due to my own sensitivities, my HVAC systems do a lot of filtration work which is overall beneficial to my too-many tanks.

HTH