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"seasoning" of carbo plus



Hi folks,

I'm trying to get some information on the Carbo Plus unit that I bought
online from Pet Warehouse. It came in the mail Tuesday and I, very
excitedly, followed the enclosed Aquarium Products direction sheet
(there were no other instructions included which I thought was kind of
odd since the unit is supposedly German and all other German-made
aquarium supplies I have purchased over the years have come with a
plethora of detailed instructions/specifications in many different
languages). Anyway, following the instructions, I placed the carbon unit
upright in the tank and then plugged it into the control box. I then
plugged the control box into the electrical outlet. Very simple.
 
The unit started generating a fine mist of bubbles immediately. However,
it seems that the dial on the control box does not work properly. When
the dial is set to the lowest/off setting, the CO2 still comes out as if
the unit is set to "MAX" and the LED lights on the control box also show
that CO2 production is at its fullest (which is way too much for my
tank). I cannot seem to get the dial to work. The unit is either off
(unplugged) or on full (plugged in) no matter what setting the dial is
on.
 
I contacted Pet Warehouse since they sold the unit to me and they told
me to take the carbon unit out of the tank and put it in a bucket of
water with the control unit on "high" for 48 hours. I found an earlier
post to this list which states that the carbon block does indeed need to
be "seasoned," but would an unseasoned block have any effect on the
control unit dial not working properly? The carbon unit has been in the
bucket for over 24 hours now and I have not seen any improvement
whatsoever in the control unit. Can you offer any advice or should I
just wait it out for another 24 hours?
 
Interestingly, I went to the Aquarium Products (Glen Burnie, MD) website
and they don't advertise a Carbo Plus unit there. I did go ahead and
send them an e-mail asking for advice, but I'm not expecting them to
answer since they don't even sell the product. Also, the unit that came
out of the box does not look exactly like the unit that is pictured on
the front of the box. It is missing the RWTuV/GS (geprufte Sicherheit)
sticker on the lower lefthand corner of the control unit. The carbon
block does have the sticker, but the attachment cord between the
controller and carbon looks different -- no rubber fitting -- the wire
is just kind of "crimped" into the stainless steel block housing. 
 
I'm sure that PetWarehouse (they have been very helpful so far) will
reimburse me or replace the product if it is broken, but I'm just
curious to know if anybody else has been through this already...

Thank you very much for any advice you can offer,
 
 Amy Shive
 amy.shive at utah_edu