newbie overwhelmed, am I doing this right?

[torkenmylar]

Didn't know I was supposed to boil driftwood, tank turned so brown I couldn't see anything. Bought some purigen, now unsure if purigen is in the right spot. Everyone keeps talking about placing it in the right layer, idk what that means. Can't find any visuals that look like my filter. It's turned dark brown after 1 day. Do I take it out? Leave it in? I'm really overwhelmed and what was supposed to be a fun little project is becoming a stressful burden, and I'm days away from calling it quits. So in a last ditch effort I'm trying it one more time. Where does the purigen go? Do I leave it in all the time? Do I need to regen it if it's already brown? Is it better to just take out the driftwood? Thank you

 

[Andy Sager]

If there are no fish in the tank, you can do a 100% water change to help get rid of the tannins being released from the wood. If there are fish in the tank, you can do a 40%-50% water change. As for the Purigen, if it is brown to black, it needs to be regenerated. Brown- black is the sign it needs to be regenerated.


As for where in the filter it goes, no matter what type of filter you are using, it should be the last thing your water goes through before reentering your tank. Because it removes organics, it will also remove the ammonia your bacteria bed in the filter needs to survive. So if you are using a hang on back (HOB )filter, it goes closest to the overflow back into the tank. If you use a canister filter where the return line is at the bottom of the canister, the purigen should be the first layer at the bottom of the filter, and so on.

Hope this helps.

 

[torkenmylar]

Yes this definitely helps a lot. There are no fish yet. So I suppose a 100% water change and then renewing the purigen and putting it back in is the best thing to do? Is there a scenario in which I don't need the purigen?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Chemical media like purigen has specific uses, so isnt usually needed unless you are dealing with an issue that needs the chemical media. When the issue is resolved, you stop using chemical media. Chemical media is expensive, periodically needs replacing, and if it isnt doing anything useful its an unnecessary expense. Many people run purigen continuously, but IMO this is often to no benefit.

Amongst other things, purigens main use is to absorb organic compounds. In your case this is the tannins (tannic acid) released by your driftwood. When the wood stops releasing tannins, you can stop having purigen in your filtration unless you are needing it to also deal with some other issues.

Just to add to Andys comment about removing ammonia. Those typical things your test kit measure, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate arent organic compounds and wont be absorbed by purigen. What will happen though is that organic compounds that would otherwise turn into ammonia will be absorbed by the purigen, thus lowering ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. If you have ammonia in your water, purigen wont do anything to help, but it might help prevent it going higher.

https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-u...® works by intercepting,, nitrite, or nitrate).

 

[Andy Sager]

Chemical media like purigen has specific uses, so isnt usually needed unless you are dealing with an issue that needs the chemical media. When the issue is resolved, you stop using chemical media. Chemical media is expensive, periodically needs replacing, and if it isnt doing anything useful its an unnecessary expense. Many people run purigen continuously, but IMO this is often to no benefit.

Amongst other things, purigens main use is to absorb organic compounds. In your case this is the tannins (tannic acid) released by your driftwood. When the wood stops releasing tannins, you can stop having purigen in your filtration unless you are needing it to also deal with some other issues.

Just to add to Andys comment about removing ammonia. Those typical things your test kit measure, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate arent organic compounds and wont be absorbed by purigen. What will happen though is that organic compounds that would otherwise turn into ammonia will be absorbed by the purigen, thus lowering ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. If you have ammonia in your water, purigen wont do anything to help, but it might help prevent it going higher.

https://seachem.zendesk.com/hc/en-u...® works by intercepting,, nitrite, or nitrate).

Aiken, So if I am reading this correctly, it should still be the last thing the water goes through before entering back into the tank. Correct?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Seachem will tell you it doesnt matter. Their recommendation is actually to have purigen before biomedia, so that it can work on those organics before it gets to your biomedia, however for the reason you bring up IMO purigen should go last.

Purigen (or activated carbon) will absorb organic compounds in the water. Waste from fish is partly organic waste and partly straight up ammonia. The organic waste will be in the form of pee and poop, and only the pee side of that will be absorbed by the purigen. So there will be some ammonia circulating whether its the staight up ammonia waste, or from decomposing poop. So its unlikely you will starve your denitrifying microbes, although there will be a reduced amount of ammonia and therefore a smaller population of denitrifying microbes will grow. So using purigen before the biomedia might cause a mini cycle when you remove it until your cycle catches up. Using it last should at least minimise the risk. Its probably not a big issue either way though.

 

[Andy Sager]

Seachem will tell you it doesnt matter. Their recommendation is actually to have purigen before biomedia, so that it can work on those organics before it gets to your biomedia, however for the reason you bring up IMO purigen should go last.

Purigen (or activated carbon) will absorb organic compounds in the water. Waste from fish is partly organic waste and partly straight up ammonia. The organic waste will be in the form of pee and poop, and only the pee side of that will be absorbed by the purigen. So there will be some ammonia circulating whether its the staight up ammonia waste, or from decomposing poop. So its unlikely you will starve your denitrifying microbes, although there will be a reduced amount of ammonia and therefore a smaller population of denitrifying microbes will grow. So using purigen before the biomedia might cause a mini cycle when you remove it until your cycle catches up. Using it last should at least minimise the risk. Its probably not a big issue either way though.

I've heard the argument both ways so I just wanted to be sure since this is not a product I used before. I'm a full on PolyFilter guy and that definitely should go last. That said, in this case, since the polyfilter pad is not rechargeable, it would be a waste of money to use it over the purigen. IMO