[AquaticLife] Nitrates in the Aquarium (now a little more about Purigen)
Steve,
Purigen is a not one of the “schemes” that we see so often in the aquaria world. It is merely a chemical filtration media made by SeaChem and it’s basically just a newer advanced form of chemical filtration, except that it’s white and turns dark brown as it gets “dirty”.
Then you can just soak it 24 hours in a 50/50 bleach/water solution to “clean” it. Then soak it another 24 hours in a 8 oz. water / 2 oz. dechlor solution and it’s ready to go back in the filter (see other step below that may be needed for some users). According to SeaChem (I haven’t found any independent testing), it’s 500 times more capable of removing TDS’, DOC’s, etc., when compared to regular carbon and it will also remove some nitrates..
Although it’s white in color, it’s not a zeolite type product so it does not remove ammonia so it will not affect the size of your nitrifying bacteria colony like zeolite does. You can get it in bulk and fill your own filter media bags or buy it in a pre-packaged filter bag suitable for up to 100G tanks. I have been keeping two of them running in my 65G goldfish tank for the past two years and have recharged them both many times and they still seem to be working fine.
Of course, the SeaChem instructions also recommend soaking the cleaned and dechlored packet in some buffer up type solution that they sell, but I have not found the need for that in my tank since I have moderately hard water already. They only recommend the buffer up process when using Purigen in FW tanks which is why I think it mainly needs to be done with lower GH/KH water since SW tanks will not have that problem. From what I understand, if you have low GH water, you need to soak the cleaned Purigen in the buffer up solution.
I think I documented my testing on my filter cleaning and maintenance page on my blog. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/02/notice-this-article-is-very-important.. html After I cleaned and dechlored a used package of Purigen, I put it in a gallon of dechlored tap water that had been sitting out for the two days also. I tested the GH/KH/pH after the two days and then added the package of Purigen and regularly stirred the water every hour or so when I was home.. After two days of the Purigen in the tap water, my GH/KH and pH remained the same level. If someone has softer or lower pH water, they should do their own testing or just use the buffer up soak as recommended by SeaChem to avoid a potential problem.
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
