Hi to everyone!
I was wondering if there was any benifit or problem in sprinkling activated carbon around Hosta's?
I gennerally get a lot of the used fish water waste, which includes a substancial amount of Vitamins and minerals. Ph levels are balanced and the nitrites and nitrates are always balanced and the water is geneally free of chemical additives.The fish tank water is always treated for Internal parasites in our fish, including "Nematodes" which is a problem also in Hosta's! So I say pour it on! Thus far I have not seen any evidence of these parasites in the hostas! not to say that I don't have a huge problem with cut worms and earwigs.
But we always have a lot of activated carbon, left over!
Just trying to keep our land fills from filling!
Izzy
Hi Izzy. I don't have an answer for you.
When I change out the carbon filters here, I have always pitched it. Never even thought about recycling it into the garden.
I don't deal with a large quantity of it, though. (like you would with a show tank, tropical fish and the like)
I have a simple 55 gal. set up that I use from Oct.-May inside that only has the fish from our small outside pond in it. Maybe 14 fish total--half Koi and half Goldfish.
I would be interested if anyone knows about this as well.
Hi Roxanne
We have 6 Tropical fish Tanks! (My husbands hobby)
And the carbon filters for our household water supply.
So recycling some of these items have become important.
We also deal with a lot of watering bans, so water of any kind doesn't go down the drain unless it has to.
Thank you for your interest also. Hopefully someone has an answer for us!
Thank you John,
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to use fish water!
I'm just trying to make sure that I don't add problems by changing the chemicals in the soil. Adding Carbon (Charcoal) is something that I'm not sure of the concequences. I don't want to loose any hosta's.
As for the nematodes, I think I'll look that up again, I thought it was the same type of parasite!
Izzy
Izzy, I am not sure about Hosta, but when my Lilac had not bloomed for about 3 years an elderly woman who I worked with told me to put wood ash all around the Liliac in the spring (just wood, no other matierals should be included in the ash). I did that and my Liliac bloomed beautifully for several years. Seems to me that the charcoal from the filter might work the same way as the charcoal ash from the wood. Not sure, might be a dumb thought, but I think you should try it on one of your Hosta and see what happens.
George, yes I knew it did that, but I guess what I was poorly attempting to say is if wood ash, which will basically contain charcoal, works okay on plants the other type of charcoal should not hurt anything and might be helpful.
Does that make sence?
The purpose of charcoal in fish tanks is to absorb chemicals produced by the fish. "good" bacteria process the ammonia from the fish into other products (nitrates and nitrites). As long as there is nothing weird in the chemistry of the aquarium other than fish, and fish waste, I would assume you would introduce two things into the garden...fertilizer (fish waste or later by products which are found in fertilizer), and the charcoal itself. Charcoal may change the ph, so you might consider an experiment and use a Ph checking kit for one area of the garden then add the charcoal a few times, then check the Ph again and see what happens. If you want to see if it fertilizes, then you might look at two adjacent areas getting the same amount of sun, and plant a couple of annuals or bareroot hostas (with no other fertilizer), into the areas. Put the charcoal in one area and not the other and check the Ph a couple of times over a couple of seasons and snap some pics of the plants to see if one grows more than the other. You would have to avoid otherwise fertilizing to be "fair".
We actually have both types of carbon.
One from the fish tanks, and the other from the household water supply. We ussually have an abundance of carbon floating around that ineviedably ends up in the land fill.
Laura is completely correct in her understanding of the cycle, regarding waste, nitrates and nitrites. Which is why I use the water for watering and for fertalizing. I certainly don't mind using the water even if there are chemicals added for internal parasites like nematodes. With 20 000 different varieties of these pests, in all shapes and sizes, they can all be killed back by using the same active ingredient used in the controling of internal parasites for fish, animals and humans.
Based on the PH levels in our tanks needing to be accurate for our fish to survive, Carbon is in all the filters to maintain a healthy environment for our fish and thier babies.
Running a test on the soil is an excellent idea. I'm always open to running different tests to see how things work and discovering an end result. I was really hoping that there may have been an obvious answer to the question with out having to do the test.
If I have gained one thing from all of this, is the knowledge that some of my plants will love it!
As I use crushed egg shells in my gardens around my Hostas to deter slugs and snails, I could probably subsitute some of the carbon, as it is just as sharp!
Thank you again for all the support in the forum.
You're a great bunch to work with.
Thank you so much for the information.
In a number of ways, very helpful and insightful.
I have been keeping all the carbon from the fish tanks and from the household filters. Nice to know it will have a constructive use instead of filling land fills.
I'm still not 100% sure if it will be okay for the Hosta's, but I will be doing a feild test in the spring.
Thank you again for your help.
Izzy
which is a problem also in Hosta's! 
So I say pour it on! 
Thus far I have not seen any evidence of these parasites in the hostas! not to say that I don't have a huge problem with cut worms and earwigs.
