Seachem Purigen And Matrix

[bevs34]

i have a aquaone aquis 1200 external filter running a trigon 190,i was just wanting to know for best results where should i place the seachem matrix and purigen,thanks.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

IMO, the purigen should be the absolute LAST thing that the water goes through before reentering the tank...  It will starve the beneficial bacteria otherwise.  And then once its "full" your ammonia will spike up. 
 
 
I'm not really a fan of "purigen" as it removes all the fun stuff from the water - fertilizers, tannins, etc.  The water does end up crystal clear though, so that's nice, if that's your goal. 

 

[bevs34]

 thanks,this filter pumps from the bottom to the top so i was going to leave the carbon sponge in with the floss on top of that and then put the purigen on top of the floss

 

[eaglesaquarium]

There's really no need for the carbon, especially with the purigen.  I'd suggest removing the carbon and adding an additional regular sponge.

 

[bevs34]

ok,but could i leave the carbon sponge in as i have no spare regular sponge or would that be too much


plus the bag has such a small surface area as these filters have quite big surface area sponges.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

You certainly could... but don't replace the carbon.  The carbon will be a fine home for the bacteria... after its done all the adsorbed all it can.  So, the answer is "yes" but don't bother replacing it.
 
You'll have plenty to do "recharging" the purigen on a regular basis.  (If I may suggest having sufficient purigen to be able to use it on a rotation basis.  Use one until you need to recharge, then trade it out with the second while recharging the first.  Then switch again when necessary. And its better to recharge too frequently rather than not frequently enough.  I'm not sure how big a bacteria colony you will actually have, so you don't want to take a chance with the purigen stopping to adsorb.)

 

[bevs34]

ok eagles that sounds good advice,i was going to recharge as instructed by seachem,but what you says sounds better,thanks again.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

You should still recharge as it says, just this way, if it doesn't recharge properly, you aren't stuck.  As for frequency, well, that's a bit of a guessing game.  And I prefer to lean on the cautious side.

 

[snazy]

You've got to be careful recharging purigen. It can send you Ph all over the place, also not to mention if the chlorine isn't taken out properly.

 

[Livewire88]

Seachem Purigen is one of my favorite products, the secret to its longevity is in the recharging process.
 
I have recharged a lot of purigen using this method; 
 
Empty the Purigen into a suitable tuperware container and soak in a 1/1 mix of bleach and water. Let it soak for 48 hours during the 48 hours give the bleach a good stir as many times as possible. Next gently pour the bleach out, if you take it steady you should not loose any Purigen down the plughole. 
 
Once you have pored as much bleach out as possible fill the container with tap water and give it a good stir, then gently pour the water out (again taking care not to loose any Purigen) do this stage a fair few times in till it looks like all the bleach has been rinsed out and the water is clear with no bubbles sitting on the surface.
 
There will be plenty of bleach still in the Purigen which needs to be removed, here is the part that always hurts me to do; mix 30ml of Seachem Prime (ouch) with RO water, The key is to soak it water that is very acidic (hence why I use RO water) along with 30ml of Prime for at least 24 hours. I hate having to use that much prime but you want to be sure any left over traces of chlorine are removed before you put it back in the filter. 
 
During my time using Purigen it has never caused any problems with my PH level, nor does it have any noticeable effect on the fertilizers that I does daily. 
 
Before;

 
During; 

 
After; 

 
These pictures should speak for themselves

  

 

[DrRob]

As an aside, I'm not a fan of leaving spent carbon in a filter, given half a chance, remove it and either keep refreshing it if that's what you want to do or replace it with a sponge. It's not worth destabilising your filter over but carbon adsorbs according to water concentration so can, in theory, leak it's toxins back out into clean water if it's been stable in dirty water (as in at a water change).
 
Again, I've not had any experience of purigen removing fertilisers, but it does remove organics and tannins, which won't be ideal for some set ups.

 

[snazy]

Carbon as eagles says, is a better filter media than most. It has large surface for establishing bacs.
I don't know whether it leaches back anything, but I've left mine in in 3 tanks and never had an issue, not intending to replace it either.

 

[bevs34]

ok thanks everyone for there comments,i think i will replace the carbon with a sponge.

 

[Rainbowdan]

Hey new to the forum, I have been using Purigen in my tanks for about a 1 1/2 yrs. I purchased several bottles before my favorite fish store closed up. I have never recharged any of the Purigen as putting bleached stuff back in my tanks is scary. I have several questions and hope someone can give me the correct answers on them.
1. seeing as I had several containers of purigen I let the used "dirty" purigen dry out in a cup. Have I failed already?
2. Is there any way to test the purigen prior to putting it back into my filter?
3. Once recharged, will the purigen work as long as it did when first purchased? if not what the reduce time factor.
 
Thanks