Purigen causing pH to rise?

hanwyz

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2013
299
2
16
United Kingdom
Recently I started running purigen in my tank (start of the week) and today I tested my water as my channa was acting strangely.... To my shock, my pH has gone from a steady 7.0-7.1 to about 8.2!! This has happened without adding any new rocks or ornaments. The only change to how I keep my tank is that I have started running purigen and have been using prime as my water conditioner. Any idea whether the purigen could have caused this? I'm going to do some water changes to try and get the pH down, but I'm worried that its going to keep going up without me realising... Anyway thanks for reading, would appreciate any input,
Hannah
 

Drstrangelove

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Oct 21, 2012
2,693
1,227
164
San Francisco
Seems unlikely. A lot of people use it. Also, Seachem says that it's a synthetic polymer resin (what ever that is) which has no ion exchange properties, which makes me think (as a non chemist) that is adsorbs organic materials but does not chemically alter water.

Here is a related post on the Seachem forum.
http://www.seachem.com/support/forums/showthread.php?t=6972

I'd look to re-test the water (in case the first test was incorrect) and also to test the source water in case the source water changed. Rain water can drastically change the ph due to runoff from soil and most public water facilities report water as being supplied in a wide range of ph readings. I'm almost certain that none offer water only in the 7.0-7.1 range.

You could of course remove the purigen and see if the ph falls, but I suspect it's not the problem.
 

tomomothy

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 14, 2009
1,000
3
68
Long Beach, Ca
Can you post the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates of your tank? May help with troubleshooting.
 

hanwyz

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2013
299
2
16
United Kingdom
I will try testing both again, I went and got the original pH retested at the lfs I was that confused :-/ I will test the tap water as well, thanks :) ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 10 so all in range

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