can you have too much Purigen?

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spiff44

spiff44

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Dec 20, 2007
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I posed this question to Seachem two days ago but they haven't responded yet..

I err on the side of over filtering...over doing things when it comes to my tank and my Purigen use is no different. A lot of this was the fact that I never used it before and really didn't expect it to work as well as they advertise. I have about 2.5 gallons of the stuff with around 2200GPH flowing through it and it changed my tank parameters nitrate readings of around 20PPM to 0 in 2 days.. maybe even faster but it was two days before I checked readings after putting this stuff on the system.

The product description states that it has negligible effect on trace minerals.. so that tells me that it does effect them.

Has anyone had any experience on this?
 
Not really anything helpful, I guess, but I added quite a bit more than is called for; ten times more. I have done this for over a year and nitrate has been unreadably low the whole time despite a heavy load. I still do weekly 50% water changes and the weird thing is I still get quite a bit of algae. I figure there is no downside, it will just take longer to get used up, which is a good thing.
 
I have a liter of the stuff on my 180 split between 2 ac110s and a fx5...only been running the stuff for a week..that said my water was VERY dark from tannins from a 79 lb driftwood piece. I also had 30- 40 ppm nitrates on an overstocked tank...This stuff COMPLETELY cleared the tannins and brought my nitrates down to 10 ppm.. lol so to make a short story long, I'm using way over the recommended amount and this stuff is great....my fish even seem more active...good stuff

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Seachem's product description states that "it has negligible effect on trace minerals".

MIRRIAM-WEBSTER, Full Definition of NEGLIGIBLE:

: so small or unimportant or of so little consequence as to warrant little or no attention
: trifling <a negligible error>


You are over thinking that.
Water changes replace minerals, and fish absorb those too. no biggie.

I use way more than recommended on 2 tanks. it keeps undesirable water parameters from creeping up between water changes, which I do every week anyway.
 
Seachem never answered my email so I called them... and they would only give me some vague wishy-washy answers but I was able to extract the following- between them trying to sell me their own brand of mineral additives....

Purigen does affect trace minerals... but they said they "didn't think it would be enough to matter on a tank"

Having extra (as Sim said) just means it takes longer for it to get cached out and needing recharging.

Granted.. I could tell that they were giving carefully worded answers so as to not really address my actual questions so that they would neither confirm or deny whether or not this was a real issue. They clearly wouldn't say anything that would possibly render their trying to sell me additives as unjustified the same as they wouldn't say anything definitively about the Purigen removing too many trace minerals.
 
I still say you are over-thinking this. especially since you do weekly water changes. A "negligible" effect on trace nutrients would require a long time to matter within the same body of water, but you are renewing water every week.
SeaChem or any company will be willing to sell something if you are overly concerned and convincing yourself that fish have higher needs than they do, because (I "think") excess nutrients in water will not be absorbed to any harmful degree.
It sounds like you want to find something to fault SeaChem for. If you don't believe the product is beneficial,
just
don't
use
it.

Problem solved.
 
petspoiler said:
I still say you are over-thinking this. especially since you do weekly water changes. A "negligible" effect on trace nutrients would require a long time to matter within the same body of water, but you are renewing water every week.
SeaChem or any company will be willing to sell something if you are overly concerned and convincing yourself that fish have higher needs than they do, because (I "think") excess nutrients in water will not be absorbed to any harmful degree.
It sounds like you want to find something to fault SeaChem for. If you don't believe the product is beneficial,
just
don't
use
it.

Problem solved.
Click to expand...


Except I don't do weekly water changes... not any more. I clean one of my canisters every few weeks... this changes out about 200 or so gallons of water. I guess my concern was with how fast it sucked 20PPM nitrates out of 1700 gallons of water in two days or less, I could see it removing more than it should.

Guess I won't worry about it.
 
Most people would be thrilled to see nitrates drop from 20ppm to 0 in one week on 1700 gallons. That is more than what you hoped for, que no? ;-)

Personally speaking, I don't use purigen to lessen the frequency of water changes on a regular basis, because fish emit some biological organics which we can't test for. the accumulation & re-absorption of such things is not healthy, even if "less" detrimental or visible than nitrates, nitrites & ammonia.
Firstly, I use purigen to eliminate nitrate fluctuations between changes. By doing normal frequency of changes the purigen does not max out as often.
Secondly, purigen @larger amount in systems is Big insurance against unforeseen interruption of water changes, such as health & family emergencies etc which could make me unavailable without warning.
I wouldn't have such a limited margin for error with nitrates stressing/risking fish. Not to mention, more drastic nitrites or ammonia.
It's the next best thing to an automatic partial water change system.

Keeping canisters clean, regular use of probiotics like RidX, frequent water changes & extra Purigen
are all insurance. Pothos on tanks can also extend overall margin for error, + extend the life of purigen.

Just my 2sense :)
 
The biggest reason was its claim to lower "redox" so that was my main objective. How much of the redox is just its ability to lower nitrates I'm not sure.

Plus, I had 2 high flow outputs from a couple UV filters that was going to waste so I was looking for something that I could throw inline to take advantage of this and I decided upon using Purigen in a 5 gallon bucket.

I forgot to mention that I also asked them if this stuff helps filter micronasties too.. they didn't answer me on that.
 
I believe micro-nasties is UVs job.
Probiotics helps in regard to outcompeting bad bacteria.
 
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