pH drop after recharging Seachem Purigan - EMERGENCY

[Floyd R Turbo]

I have been using Purigen on my 55g community and 10g fry tanks. On my 10g just a 100mL bag in the filter. I took it out and recharged it per the directions. This is exactly what I did:

Soak in a 50/50 bleach solution for 24 hours.

Soak in a solution of 2 Tbsp Prime to 1 cup RO water for 8 hours.

Soak in a solution of 1 Tbsp Seachem Acid Buffer in RO water for 4 hours. This is exactly per the directions.

Rinsed well, then additionally soaked in RO water for several hours and did a Chlorine dip strip test which showed 0/0.

I put it back in my filter and woke up to this today:





All my guppies, mamas (2) and babies (20-30), dead. Marigold mama's eye's glazed over, most of the swordtail fry are at the surface, a few dead, platy fry (at least one of them) seem ok.

Immediately tested pH, which normally stays between 7.4 and 7.8, was at the bottom of the scale 6.0. I got the dead fish out along with about 1.5 gal water and put about 3/4 gal in 1/2 RO 1/2 Tap w/prime (RO pH is about 8.2, tap about 9.0) and added an airstone, and tested pH again still 6.0 so I'm sure it went way down.

Anyone else experience this after recharging Purigen? You would think something like this would be of great concern and should have been noted on the label or something. What if I did this in my 55? WTF man.

Just in case anyone else is wanting to know what to do with Purigen, the next time I recharge it, after going through all the steps, I'm putting it into a bare 5g with a power head and waiting until it stops dropping the pH. I am totally pissed off at Seachem right now and I sent them a comment knowing exactly what I thought of them.

[CaptainAhab]

Do you know where your Kh was before and after?

[Etunes]

That is crazy, i have never used it before and now probably never will. Ya, do you know what your KH was before and after?

[Floyd R Turbo]

That could also be a problem, my KH was never that high, 3 the last time I tested and right now it's apparently zero. It's never really been an issue. I guess I should maybe start paying attention to it.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Originally Posted by Etunes

That is crazy, i have never used it before and now probably never will.

It's not the Purigen itself, it's a great product, it's the recharging process. Other than that, it keeps my Nitrates way, way down in a heavily stocked tank. I just wish I tried it out on an empty tank before dropping it righ tback in my filter. hindsight is 20/20

[mrg02d]

Hello,
Now I have a reef tank, but I TOO had my tank crash somewhat when I added purigen BACK to the tank AFTER recharging. I followed the directions carefully. Hours after putting it back in some of my corals died and my coral banded shrimp was dead the next day. All my parameters checked out fine except pH was down to 7.8 rather than the usual 8.2.

There seems to be something about recharging Purigen...
Matt

[CaptainAhab]

Hot google and look for purigen recharging kh ph.. There are lots of people who have experienced issues. both FW and SW

[Floyd R Turbo]

Here's the message to Seachem:

I just followed the directions to recharge Purigen to a T on my 10g fry tank, and after doing 24 hrs in 50-50 bleach, 8 hrs in Prime, 4 hrs in Acid buffer, just like the directions say, and I put it back in after testing after a soak in RO water for residual Chlorine, I woke up this morning to a tank full of dead guppies, both mamas and fry, but my swordtails are still alive. It dropped the ph from 7.6-7.8 to 6.0. Why in the **** would you have it on your directions to put in that acid buffer if it potentially could drop the pH so rapidly!?!?!?!? I'm so pissed off right now, I lost 2 pregnant mamas and dozens of fry, and my tank water is fried. My tap water comes out at 9.0 and settles in the tank at 7.6-8 so I can't do a large PWC to fix this. Thank GOD I didn't do this in my 55, which has 2 bags of 250ml, one mainly used up and the other new. WHY DON'T YOU PUT A WARNING ON YOUR PRODUCT ABOUT THIS. I've been keeping tanks for 20 years and I've never had a product do this. I use many Seachem products and swore by them but this is just inexcuseable and irresponsible. I thought the acid buffer (use SEACHEM!) was supposed to do something special for freshwater, I didn't think I'd have to neutralize it after doing it. I demand an explanation!!

And their reply:

Hello,

We are very sorry to hear about the loss of your fish.
Please know that we do understand your frustration with this incident. Also, here at Seachem, we honestly do want people to be successful in the hobby. Seachem has been around for 30 years in the hobby, and we are all hobbyists ourselves; therefore, we do care about all aquatic organisms and are always saddened to hear about a tragedy such as this, so we can sympathize with your situation.
Please know that here at Seachem, all of our products go through a lengthy research and development phase, as do the instructions on all of our labels. Purigen has been around for many years; not once have we heard of a situation where it has brought down the pH of a tank to the extent that you described (even when used with Acid Buffer). The buffer step is recommended for use with freshwater to neutralize the high pH of bleach. If one is keeping saltwater fish or African Cichlids (or any other fish that prefer/require a higher pH), the buffer step does not need to be performed. Please allow us to ask a few questions to help try and figure out what may have
happened: how much Acid Buffer did you use? What instrument/test kit are you using to test the pH of your tank? Was anything else added to the tank at within that time span? In any case, please do accept our deepest apologies for your loss. As you are a loyal user of Seachem products, please allow us to help compensate you for your loss. If you would please email us back with your name and shipping address, along with a few Seachem products that you use/would like to try, we will gladly send you a care package. Again, we apologize for this incident and hope that you will allow us to make things right; we look forward to your reply.

Thank you,

Tech Support

[CaptainAhab]

IMO and after some lengthy email exchanges with Seachem 'technical support' I've concluded that most (if not all) of them are either reading from a prepared script based on previous incidents/calls or lack the appropriate knowledge to discuss their products. Here's 2 snippets:

The first when discussing Prime and nitrate tests. I was informed that most any idiot should be able to control nitrates via their media and thus water changes or other methods are not really required.

The second is them telling me that they don't know how their product works but since so many people reported to them that it worked in a certain way they decided it must be true and added it to their label. Science at it's best.

It's made me rethink using any of their products. Your experience just adds to that


"even the beginner hobbyist has the ability to provide internal surface area on which anaerobic bacteria can colonize, thus providing nitrate control. Simply adding a biological media with high internal porosity will allow one to achieve better nitrate control. Matrix is one such media, and here is the link to its page if you would like further information on how it works"





"I wish we had some more "concrete" explanation, but the end result is
>the same, it does actually detoxify nitrite and nitrate. This was
>unexpected chemically and thus initially we were not even aware of
>this, however we received numerous reports from customers stating that
>when they overdosed with Prime they were able to reduce or eliminate
>the high death rates they experienced when their nitrite and nitrate
>levels were high. We have received enough reports to date to ensure
>that this is no fluke and is in fact a verifiable function of the
>product."

[Floyd R Turbo]

Ouch.

The slamming on Seachem is great and all, but right now I need a fix to my problem!! I have been performing small water changes every hour or two, 1 to 2 gallons, and pH is still off the bottom of the scale. It appears with my KH reading that my buffer was wiped out? Do I need to do a baking soda treatment or something with the next water change? I've probably done a 50% overall water change with pH water in the 8.2-8.6 range and it's still not coming up. Fish look better and only a few more losses but I'm afraid of what I might wake up to tomorrow.

[Etunes]

Honestly, my next step if you never re treated the 55 gallon is to move all the fish to there. And then i would take the 10g and start doing water changes from the 55 gallon. I might take time to wipe out all the buffer or whatever is in that stuuf out of the system. And if that would over stock your 55 gallon, i might still do it just step my water changes a little. It is better then losing all those fish.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I don't think I have much of a choice at this point. My Ammonia on my 10g is now at 0.25ppm, and that's after doing about 5 10-15% PWCs with 80% RO 20% tap (for temperature), and the pH is right around 6.2-6.4, and didn't change with the last 1 gallon change. It appears that my bacterial colony has been wiped out.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I decided to do a 40% PWC and pull water from the 55, to minimize shock. Got pH up to the 7.0-7.4 range, so initial emergency over. My ammonia is spiking huge though, I just tested 30 minutes after doing the water pull (zero ammonia in the 55) and it's still at least 0.25. I have 1 adult Marigold and probably 40-50 swordtail fry, some are less than 1 month old, and a bunch of snails. I could care less about the snails, but I'm sure some of the fry will get chased around/eaten, even though I have plenty of cover for them.

I guess I'm going to have to figure out a way to house them separately in the 55, or I will have to open up my C-360 and take out a handful of ceramic rings and bio-balls to "seed" the filter again.

Could this just be a mini-cycle? Since the Purigen was IN the filter, I'm guessing dropping the pH down so low probably killed off all the bacteria at least in the filter, but I have a sponge on the intake also. I just don't see any way of explaining such a sharp spike so fast, other than a total bacterial colony crash. I don't really feel like taking the filter apart right now so maybe I'll just grab a handful of gravel off the top of the gravel bed and dump that in there for the night.

Wish me luck.

[Etunes]

Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo

Could this just be a mini-cycle? Since the Purigen was IN the filter, I'm guessing dropping the pH down so low probably killed off all the bacteria at least in the filter, but I have a sponge on the intake also. I just don't see any way of explaining such a sharp spike so fast, other than a total bacterial colony crash. I don't really feel like taking the filter apart right now so maybe I'll just grab a handful of gravel off the top of the gravel bed and dump that in there for the night.

Wish me luck.

I would assume it as the whole system just crashed. With such a fast and SHARP crash in PH i would assume the bacteria dies. I would say your best bet would be to acclumate your fish to the 55 gallon and switch a bag of gravel over to the 10g and some bioballs in the filter and basically recycle your tank. For sticking the fish into the 55 gallon i would research into a simple homemade tank devider. Just google that into google and you will get plenty of hits. Wish you luck man.

[Floyd R Turbo]

"Just google that into google..." I can't say I've heard it put that way before LOL.

As I'm sitting here watching the color develop on my Ammonia kit, I also realized that I've been doing this long enough to know, just by smelling the tank, that it had started to cycle. That's actually what prompted me to test the water for ammonia, I was down there close looking for any more dead fish, and got this whiff, and said "Shoot, this tank is cycling". (I didn't really say Shoot but I got my hand slapped for replacing the I with a ! in the other more appropriate word in that situation. Sorry everyone.) The smell to me is best described as "wet rock" or maybe "wet gravel" is better, like when you get a new bag of plain gravel and go to rinse it off, that's the smell.

I wonder what Nitrites smell like...now I may get the chance to find out! Although, with all the Vals in there I doubt I'll have much free in the water.

Ammonia still 0.25ppm
pH holding steady at around 7.2

[Etunes]

Well, sounds like you are on your way. Have you moved the fish?

[bs6749]

A pH fluctuation from 8 down to 6 isn't going to kill your fish. It is not harmful when the pH fluctuates downward, rather when it increases say from 6.0 to 8.0 because of the ammonia/ammonium ion equilibrium. Harmful ammonia will be produced from harmless ammonium ion when the pH increases. Less ammonia and more ammonium ion (harmless) is present at a lower pH. Sure, the pH may have decreased, but that isn't what killed your fish. The pH is only able to tell help you narrow down what killed your fish. It was something that is an acid to say the least. Either that or you didn't thoroughly rinse the bleach (which killed the fish) and at the same time you put far too much acid buffer into your tank, which would mask the amount of bleach in the tank by buffering the water since sodium hydroxide is a strong base and would otherwise increase the pH of the tank.

What you should do (in my opinion) is a 100% water change on the tank and you will be all set. I'm not sure why you are even using Purigen. If you are worried about ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates just keep the pH acidic near 6.0 and have lots of plants to soak up the nitrates. Plants ike guppy grass, sunset hygro, frogbit, duckweed and other fast growers are excellent for the removal of nitrates. Guppies will still breed and live in an acidic environment with low to moderate GH.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Yeah, but guppies are also sensitive to large pH swings. When I do a PWC is swings from 7.4-7.6 to 8.2-8.4, but slowly drops back down. This swung from 7.4-7.6 to BELOW 6.0, well below 6.0 in fact.

I know it was the pH swing that killed them because the swordtail fry did not die in near the numbers. 100% of guppies (babies and mamas) were white - stone cold dead. Maybe 5% of the swordtails died, and they are still alive as we speak. No deaths since I caught the problem.

Haven't had time to move the fish.

I use purigen because a users on theplantedtank.net suggested using it because it soaks up dissolved organics without removing trace minerals, and it does work fantastically. I just learned a lesson here on checking it before putting it back in the tank. I will continue to use it

[mfdrookie516]

are you just going to replace it now instead of recharging it in the future? seems like id be afraid to recharge it after this happened, and after all the reports online

[bs6749]

Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo

Yeah, but guppies are also sensitive to large pH swings. When I do a PWC is swings from 7.4-7.6 to 8.2-8.4, but slowly drops back down. This swung from 7.4-7.6 to BELOW 6.0, well below 6.0 in fact.

I know it was the pH swing that killed them because the swordtail fry did not die in near the numbers. 100% of guppies (babies and mamas) were white - stone cold dead. Maybe 5% of the swordtails died, and they are still alive as we speak. No deaths since I caught the problem.

Haven't had time to move the fish.

I use purigen because a users on theplantedtank.net suggested using it because it soaks up dissolved organics without removing trace minerals, and it does work fantastically. I just learned a lesson here on checking it before putting it back in the tank. I will continue to use it

pH swings don't kill fish, whatever killed your fish also caused the pH to swing. Very basic chemistry understandings show that it was an acid that is to blame since the pH decreased (became acidic). Acids "donate" H+ ions when dissolved in water, and that is what the pH scale measures...the amount of H+ ions in solution.

With the presence of ammonia of your tank, the pH will become more alkaline and will increase with increasing ammonia. You have a ton of ammonia in your tank if it was present when your pH was 6.0 because harmless ammonium ions outnumber harmful ammonia molecules by about 1000:1 at that pH, meaning if your pH becomes alkaline your ammonia level is going to go through the roof. That is why I recommend a 100% water change. The bacteria will still be there in the substrate and whatever killed the fish will be removed and only a very small amount approaching zero will remain.