Purigen overdose?

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rodger

rodger

Polypterus
MFK Member
Apr 29, 2008
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Kansas City
I have a 240 with a 100 gal moving bed sump an an Eheim 2262 for filtration. Medium stock level and weekly 50% water changes. I am getting ready to bring a 600 gallon tank on line sharing the sump but that is still a month off. A week ago I added 4 liters of Purigen to the cannister. Instantly I have completly invisible water! This is a good thing.
My concern is that my fish barely eat now. I have a jaguar cat I was always afraid would explode but is starting to get a sunken belly. I am pulling the purigen out for now. Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Ph is 8.2 and all the N are zero. Yes, zero nitrates. I guess the purigen has adsorbed it all. What is your experience with a Purigen overdose?

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I personally have not used purigen, but plan to once I get all of my tanks up and running. But, based on my reading you cannot overdose purigen because it doesn't add anything to the water. The only negative thing I can think of about adding a large amount of purigen is by removing all of the waste their is nothing left for your beneficial bacteria, so maybe you are having a mini cycle. You stated your nitrates were zero, which is great but do you get any readable amounts of ammonia? This is really just a shot in the dark, but maybe plausible.

Last thing, I am assuming you bought the purigen new and not used from someone else, otherwise it is possible there was some residual bleach from a recharge or something like that.
 
Purigen is an absorbing media it doesn't leach anything unless you recharge it incorrectly. New out of the bag no I don't see it being possible to overdose. Possibly if the bag you have it in is not fine enough and some got into the display and was ingested then that might cause a problem. I know purigen is super small.
 
It is new, rinsed Purigen. The bag is 100 micron and Purigen is 180.
No, there is zero ammonia. Keep in mind this is brand new, only been in a week. It may be adsorbing all the ammonia.

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I was up to 2.5 gallons of Purigen and it turned out to be too much. But the issue was that it was just stopping flow from so much resistance since its such a fine medium and requires such a fine bag to contain. 1.5 inches thick is about the limit or it dramatically stops flow.

That's the only issue I saw from having too much.
 
I use a media reactor with my purigen...it utilizes the entire surface area of the purigen...I use about a liter in my 180 overstocked tank and my water is unbelievably clear :)
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verbal said:
How often do you have to recharge it?
Click to expand...
About once a month..but as I said that's on a HEAVILY stocked tank with 90 lbs of driftwood (lots of tannins)...I think the reactor is a better idea IMO since I was never getting full coverage using just media bags...the aquatop reactor I use was cheap ($60), and has an adjustable pump so the purigen doesn't get blown out..great investment
 
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