WORST CASE SCENARIOS

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
hamfist;4693868; said:
Cool.

Out of interest how much purigen are you using for, say, a 60 gallon tank ?
I tried one of the small bags of it once, in a little 5 gallon tank, and in my situation it got "used up" very quickly. I pretty much have not really investigated it any further since. It's good that it's working for you though !

To be honest, the direction says to use certain amount for certain size of the tank. But to me, I used about a quart for any tank size. There is no danger in involved in using too much purigen. A quart last me anywhere between a month into 3 month. It depends how much I am feeding my fish and how much waste is my fish producing + tank size.
I always regenerate my purigen and reuse it without issue. I don't know if you can regenerate it the second time, but I usually toss them away after the 1st time regenerating them(just don't feel confident that it'll work as good after the second time regenerating it). ;)
 
BIG_ONE;4693882; said:
about a quart


Thats about two pints, yeah ? Sorry, i'm not that familiar with the term.
 
it is theorettically possible to do this, I have 2 tanks that I run this way, but they have to be set up with that in mind. The secret is plants, well buffered, and rotting. Read ecology of the planted aquarium -diana walstad. It depends on how much bio filtration you have in "normal" tanks, but you really should change the water
 
No water change at all is very possible indeed. I know a few people who's water is top notch and never did a water change for half a year or more. It all depends how much filtration do you have in your tank in terms of chemical, mechanical, and bio-bacteria filtration. One of my buddy who never did a water change runs a sump, 2 sponge filters, and two AC110 on a 100 gallon tank.
So far, my water is as crisp as it can be and water parameter never swings at all including pH. I test them every single weekend with API Master Freshwater test kit(most accurate on the market that I've seen). One of my tank has been running for almost a month, I just recently took down my 60 gallon breeder and that tank has run for 4 months, and my other tank that has been running for 5 months.
The only time I would change the water is if I quarantine them in a quarantine tank or if I use medications in their tank and not the quarantine tank. Other than that, I just add more water to it when I see that the water level has dropped. And I loose about an inch of water in 1 week...which I find it amazingly fast(maybe it's just me).


I'm always amazed how lazy people can justify their way of keeping a fish swimming in its own toilet.


There's a lot more to high quality water parameters than simply testing for nitrates. Phosphates, pheromones, and other chemical substances can build up in a tank over time. Minerals & trace elements also become depleted over time, so it's not just what's being added to the bio load, it's what's being lost to the environment as well. Using products such as Purigen can defintely help in removing dissolved organic compounds, but it wasn't designed so that people could skip water changes. It also wasn't designed to remove the live bacteria that are found in an aquarium, which also build up over time, and can play on a fishes immune system.

Water clarity, doesn't equal water quality.

Diana Walstad knows what she's doing, and by maintaining a properly balanced ecosystem this type of set up can be very successful.

What Big-One is doing doesn't even come remotely close.
 
Mentioning about minerals and trace elements...CM Minerals Stone + CM Aqua Vitae always keep my minerals and elements in check.
And if all my fish are swimming in its own toilet then I guess that it is just me and my laziness or whichever you want to call it. But all I know is that my fish never had any issue, same goes with all the the other fish I kept in the past 10 years. :D
 
But all I know is that my fish never had any issue, same goes with all the the other fish I kept in the past 10 years.


My wife has had a drivers license for close to 40 yrs, drove a lot of cars in that time, hasn't managed to kill anyone yet, but it would be a hell of a stretch for me to refer to her as a good driver.
 
Pharaoh;4694827; said:
Water seems a lot cheaper than Purigen. Why wouldn't you just do a water change?

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2753922&cp=2767036.2860209

Going to school and working the same time isn't very flexible for me. I only have enough time to feed them just before bed, unless I'm on a holiday. But on a holiday, there always seem to have some kind of plan going on too...maybe I need to take a vacation from my job to do water changes? :D
 
RD.;4694801; said:
My wife has had a drivers license for close to 40 yrs, drove a lot of cars in that time, hasn't managed to kill anyone yet, but it would be a hell of a stretch for me to refer to her as a good driver.

What does that prove? Driving comes into avoiding others and avoiding your mistakes. Do you avoid others from killing your fish or ruining your tank? I see where your coming from, but I don't think it fits in the correct category. ;)
 
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