ILLUSN
Mon Dec 27, 2010, 10:45 AM
As most of you know I'm not a fan of absorbtive filtration. My belief is thay water changes are the way to go as absrobitive filtration removes too many usefull elements such as.
ions
vitamins
amino acids
trace elements and minerals
tannins
water changes on the other hand restore trace elemts to the system as well dilute organic waste and remove nitrate.
This being said there are situations where waterchanges just arnt possible or fesable eg going on holidays, or super overstocked tanks where the nitrates buld to over 50ppm within 24 hours. in such a system an absorptive medium should be used.
The most common is activated carbon which is very efficient at striping the water of everything, the problem is once saturated compounds bound to the carbon can be released if another compond with a higher affinity is present.
mixed resins such as chemi zorb and chemi pure combine high grade active carbon with a resin that stops these elements from bein released (ie once released from the carbon they are absorbed by the resin).
These products are VERY good at what they do and are a little less harsh on trace elements than pure carbon, however they still depleat over time and need to be replaced every 3-6 months, in the long run this can get expensive.
Seachem released 2 products hypersorb and purigen to address this, both are 100% synthetic polymers manufactured into tiny beads, the surface of these beads has a very high affinity for nitrogenous waste (ammonia NO2 and NO3) as well as organic compounds with minimal afinity for trace elements. Of the 2 products purigen has a higher efficiency (and hence price). The real bonus with this system is the claim that it can be regenerated over and over again, So I thought I'd test it.
The procedure is to mix water and bleach in a 1 to 1 ratio and soak over night (up to 24hours) then rinse with water neutrilize the bleach with prime (or other water ager), soak in a solution of acid buffer (or salt if used for marine fish) and your good to go.
they do state that some products might foul purigen and make regeneration "difficult"
The TEST:
on my main tank I've been running 500ml of purigen for just over a year and its saturated it took 4 washes in a bucket of tap water just to get all the mulm out of it. all up it took 4 bleach tratements but the results were astounding.
ions
vitamins
amino acids
trace elements and minerals
tannins
water changes on the other hand restore trace elemts to the system as well dilute organic waste and remove nitrate.
This being said there are situations where waterchanges just arnt possible or fesable eg going on holidays, or super overstocked tanks where the nitrates buld to over 50ppm within 24 hours. in such a system an absorptive medium should be used.
The most common is activated carbon which is very efficient at striping the water of everything, the problem is once saturated compounds bound to the carbon can be released if another compond with a higher affinity is present.
mixed resins such as chemi zorb and chemi pure combine high grade active carbon with a resin that stops these elements from bein released (ie once released from the carbon they are absorbed by the resin).
These products are VERY good at what they do and are a little less harsh on trace elements than pure carbon, however they still depleat over time and need to be replaced every 3-6 months, in the long run this can get expensive.
Seachem released 2 products hypersorb and purigen to address this, both are 100% synthetic polymers manufactured into tiny beads, the surface of these beads has a very high affinity for nitrogenous waste (ammonia NO2 and NO3) as well as organic compounds with minimal afinity for trace elements. Of the 2 products purigen has a higher efficiency (and hence price). The real bonus with this system is the claim that it can be regenerated over and over again, So I thought I'd test it.
The procedure is to mix water and bleach in a 1 to 1 ratio and soak over night (up to 24hours) then rinse with water neutrilize the bleach with prime (or other water ager), soak in a solution of acid buffer (or salt if used for marine fish) and your good to go.
they do state that some products might foul purigen and make regeneration "difficult"
The TEST:
on my main tank I've been running 500ml of purigen for just over a year and its saturated it took 4 washes in a bucket of tap water just to get all the mulm out of it. all up it took 4 bleach tratements but the results were astounding.