Possibly the most stable tank setup I've had in 20 years!

[Floyd R Turbo]

I just wanted to give some props to all the products I am currently using in my setup, because I just checked the water chemistry and was pleasantly shocked!!

I have a 55g freshwater community with livebearers and tetras mainly, and when I set it up on 1/1 after an 7-8 year hiatus from fishkeeping, I set it up using my UGF w/power heads. I have very regularly tested the water, done changes, gravel vacs, etc until I got sick of it. Constantly sucking tons of gunk out of the gravel, you know the drill if you're a UGF person.

So I got a Marineland C-360 Canister, and put some Seachem Purigen in there for chemical filtration (doesn't affect trace minerals, yay for plants) and pulled 1/2 of the UGF after it was running for a week. After 2 more weeks (which was last weekend), I pulled the other 1/2 of the UGF, and cleaned the canister (3 weeks running) and put the Purigen into the "The Bag" product that keeps it from getting everywhere, because it did.

So as of 5/16 at 9pm, 3 hours after the system overhaul and a 40% water change, by water parameters were as follows:

pH 8.2 (dropped to 7.4 by the next morning - tap is high in pH but drops in the tank quickly)
Ammonia 0.1 (again, tap water issue, 0 by the AM)
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 8-10, which is where it had been at pretty much since the tank was set up
Phosphate 2-3ppm (can't get it down)

Now, 1 week later at 2:15pm 5/23 I tested the water before I did a PWC and here's what I've got:

pH 7.8
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phos 2-4 (still can't get rid of it)

My Ammonia/Nitrites have been 0 ever since week 3, but I have never seen 0ppm Nitrates in this tank, and it's had plenty of plants from the start. I can only attribute this to the effectiveness of the Seachem Purigen in the canister. The test tube was so yellow, I got it mixed up with the Ammonia test tube, the only way I could tell a difference was the water level in the Nitrate tube was higher because the test uses more drops.

To sum it up, I Love Purigen and Marineland. If they were a person I would marry them. Ok, maybe I don't love them that much, but my fish sure do.

Oh yeah and it kicks <expletive!!> not having to deep gravel vac all the time! I went over the top inch of all the tank which ended up being about a 25% PWC and most of what I got was solid instead of cloudy/dirty. Awesome!!

 

[JustOneMore20]

Thats awesome!

If you have alot of plants in there and your nitrates are continually 0, you might actually need to dose some nitrates. Otherwise, you could be facing algae issues in the future. 0 nitrates isn't great in planted tanks....they need something to feed off of!

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Right! I hadn't thought of that. I was just thrown by the low NA. I suppose it could be 1-2 ppm, but it was low enough that it just looked yellow and no hint of orange or at least not very noticeable.

My plants are mainly Vals (about 20-30 of them, started with 2) along with a couple Echinodorus, the Belheri does well, the Rose and 2 other swords do not but still live. I'm thinking I might start a better dosing schedule, especially since I'm getting more plants now that I can!!

 

[JustOneMore20]

Yeah, definitely consider dosing, even if you do it once or twice a week. It will atleast keep the plants happy and hopefully keep algae away.

 

[krazeeboy]

pics of said tank setup? =) *crosses fingers*

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Full Tank

Vals

Echinodorus Belheri

Echinodorus Rose (Now)

This is what it looked like when I got it

Amazon Swords (unsure exact name)

What they looked like when I first got them (2 plants, just had roots intertwined)

Hungry Hungry Fish

 

[Hairy_Harold]

Purigen is a product that absorbs Nitrogen compounds, ie ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. When the Purigen is full as such and needs replenishing you will end up with a massive Nitrate spike. Happened to my friend and nearly killed all her L202, it is always good to have a second bag of purigen on stand by so you can avoid the spike. Purigen will do nothing to your phosphate levels, to lower your phosphates I would recommend a product by Seachem calls phosguard which absorbs phosphates. Only down side to it is it's no re usable.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Thanks for the heads up. It doesn't actually absorb A/Ni/Na though, here's what Seachem's website says:

Purigen™ controls ammonia, nitrites and nitrates by removing nitrogenous organic waste that would otherwise release these harmful compounds.

...and...

Unlike other products on the market which are simple ion-exchange resins, Purigen™ is specifically designed to be an organic scavenging resin.

So I guess if it gets used up and doesn't have the ability to absorb the organic compounds, then your bio-filter would start working like you weren't using Purigen at all. Even then, it would take weeks if not months for Nitrate to reach lethal levels, and weekly testing should have revealed the problem well in advance so that the Purigen could be removed, recharged, and reinserted without any chemical spike.

BTW what is L202?

Yeah I don't know what to do about the phosphate. Strange thing is that they're gone from my 10g and the only difference is the big Rainbow Rock on the right side w/ the vals, which I'm told won't leech phosphates, but it wasn't the driftwood, I removed that and several months later no phosphates in the bucket it's in.

 

[CaptainAhab]

Phosphate removal (why pay for brand name, this is all it is; Ferric Oxide) ---> Bulk Reef Supply - Bulk Reef Supply

Not IMO; Nitrate builds over time ----->> 'When the Purigen is full as such and needs replenishing you will end up with a massive Nitrate spike'

 

[happygirl65]

If your 10 gal has plants they may be using up the phosphates. You can have phosphates in your tap water...have you tested that? You can also get phosphates from most fish food.

On those swords, do you have a root tab fertilizer under them? If not I highly recommend it, they will take off like crazy. They may even outgrow that 55 gallon. Hard to imagine, but true.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Some phos in the tap water, but not that much, and use the same tap water for both. I have plants in both tanks, about 5 vals in the 10g and the phos dropped off right after I used carbon (using Purigen in there now too) before I put them in, so it's still a mystery. Haven't been to LFS to get root tabs yet, but it's in the plan. Also was told that I can stick a rusty nail under the swords too so maybe I'll do both.

 

[Hairy_Harold]

Thanks for the heads up. It doesn't actually absorb A/Ni/Na though, here's what Seachem's website says:

Purigen™ controls ammonia, nitrites and nitrates by removing nitrogenous organic waste that would otherwise release these harmful compounds.

...and...

Unlike other products on the market which are simple ion-exchange resins, Purigen™ is specifically designed to be an organic scavenging resin.

So I guess if it gets used up and doesn't have the ability to absorb the organic compounds, then your bio-filter would start working like you weren't using Purigen at all. Even then, it would take weeks if not months for Nitrate to reach lethal levels, and weekly testing should have revealed the problem well in advance so that the Purigen could be removed, recharged, and reinserted without any chemical spike.

BTW what is L202?

Yeah I don't know what to do about the phosphate. Strange thing is that they're gone from my 10g and the only difference is the big Rainbow Rock on the right side w/ the vals, which I'm told won't leech phosphates, but it wasn't the driftwood, I removed that and several months later no phosphates in the bucket it's in.

L202 is a kind of pleco about $150AUD at 3cm. Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are "Nitrogenous Compounds" as Seachem call them. I find is strange that they say it doesn't absorb A/Ni/Na when you can see it in anyones test results after adding purigen that they dissapear.

Phosphate removal (why pay for brand name, this is all it is; Ferric Oxide) ---> Bulk Reef Supply - Bulk Reef Supply

Not IMO; Nitrate builds over time ----->> 'When the Purigen is full as such and needs replenishing you will end up with a massive Nitrate spike'

The op stated that since purigen was added that nitrates have gone to zero, which should be a well known fact that this happens. After the purigen is full it can't absorb the nitrogen compounds anymore and you get big spikes.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I think the "big spikes" is the statement that we are both taking issue with. Nitrate takes time to build up, you can't get a spike going from 0ppm to over 40ppm in a just a few days, which would be considered a dangerous level. It seems to be generally understood that Nitrates should be kept below 20ppm but even 40 to 80ppm can still be tolerated, depending on species.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I can't see how Purigen would work without eliminating the bacteria for the tank to cycle. If I end up with no Nitrates, that means that the bacteria that eat Nitrite and convert it to Nitrate have nothing to eat, or at least the plants are absorbing whatever Nitrate is left over very quickly. The dissolved organic waste Purigen takes in you would think would take away from the Ammonia consuming bacteria, thus eliminating or reducing the bio colony, but I'm sure this isn't the case. I was recommended to use Purigen by someone on The Planted Tank Forum as it reduces harmful organics without removing trace minerals, which is what carbon does.

I'd be interested to find out more about how Purigen works.

 

[Hairy_Harold]

Basically that is the point as they are absorbed in some capactiy by the purigen the bacterial growth is stunted and when the purigen is full and can not absorb no more the waste products completely overwhelm the bacteria and hence your spkes.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I could see Purigen hindering the Ammonia and Nitrite eating bacteria by absorbing their 'food', meaning that when the Purigen is 'full' there would be more ammonia present and not enough bacteria to 'eat' it and turn it into Nitrite. Then when the Ammonia eating bacterium build back up again, there would be an excess of Nitrite, etc, but still the NitrAtes would take a while to build up. Are you sure it wasn't a NitrIte spike that caused the probelm you alluded to in your first post?

 

[Hairy_Harold]

Was definately Nitrates I understand what you are saying though, it just conincided with the purigen becoming full. I just realised what I was saying doesn't have a full logic behind it as if there is less bacteria there should be less nitrates produced in the first place. Hrmm you've thrown me now lol I think the best way to really monitor it is have a second bag on hand ready to use. That way when you think the purigen is becoming "full" you can swap them over and replenish the bag and have it ready for the next swap. It just doesn't seem logical that it could be nitrite because 40-80ppm of nitrite should kill a fish instantly I would think.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Tested again today and Nitrates were around 10ppm, still 0/0 on ammonia/nitrite. Makes me wonder if it was just a fluke. Plus I added 2 Crypts, 1 big sword with 2 runners, some cool Wisteria and 2 other plants. Will post pics later, after I re-arrange...