Carbon Alternatives

[twoluvcats]

I use carbon in all my tanks...but now that I've entered the plant arena, I'm thinking maybe carbon might be too aggressive of a media. Does anyone have any experience with carbon alternatives? Specifically these to Seachem products:

Seachem's Renew
Seachem's Hypersorb
Seachem's Purigen

Now let me explain my water...its BAD!!!! I live in a small mining town in western colorado...our watershed is a stagnant part of the Colorado River, that is periodlically innundated by livestock and also is the runoff area for major gas well drilling...so we have icky bad stuff like benzine, copper, magnesium and other 'will kill you' heavy metals in our water. Then our water treatment plant is 50+ years old...meant to serve ~500 people and currently providing water for 2000+ people...these are all the reasons I use carbon...but if its sucking out stuff my plants need, maybe I should switch. (and yes, I have a whole house softener and a R/O drinking water system to try to get as much of this icky bad stuff out as I can before I have to drink/use it...but i know some is still there.)

Oh, one other product question: Water Softener Pillow...would this work with plants? Or again...will I be sucking out stuff that my plants need? Cause even with a softener, my water is down to semi-hard...instead of liquid metal.

[amanichen]

Going by Seachem's reputation alone, I'd say the Renew would work well for what it's advertised to do.

Stay away from water softening products that take things like iron, as well as calcium and magnesium. Iron is a plant nutrient and too little of it can cause yellowing leaves.

The R/O water will take out most chemicals, but if you want to use carbon after the R/O process then that might help take out more chemicals (more of the nastier ones.)

After the water has been treated, and fertilized or however your prepare it, then using the Renew in the tank should work fairly well.

[twoluvcats]

thanks!! that's the info i wanted