Media Reactor and Purigen

[Mattgrizzlybear]

i have heard about using purigen as a chemical filtration inside a reactor but i am not sure what reactor would work and/or work best or even to use purigen. If anyone has had experiances with purigen, please share on how you did it, if you used a media reactor or not and the effects on your tank, etc. I have read many places that it works great and the water is perfect but also that it isn't all that good with minimal water quality changes. It also seems expensive over time even after recharging it a few times, thats still 4 times a year for a new supply of purigen (at least thats what i have read) This is for a 125g tank btw. Thanks!

[rickztahone]

Check out the stickies by member "afriend" right at the top of the list here:
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/forumd...s-and-Plumbing

He runs a Purigen reactor in his setup amongst a whole bunch of other things

[Tshethar]

Hey Matthew,

Got your PM and figured I would write back here; yeah, I do have a reactor set up on a tank I intend to use for discus, and it has been in service for about 8 months. It's something that I decided to try out and I would say that I am pretty happy with how it's functioning in general, though I would say the jury is out for me on to what extent I would recommend it. (Maybe in the category of "recommend," but not necessarily "highly" or "strongly."

A few thoughts:

1) the Phosban 550 does work pretty well at fluidizing the material, and with the addition of some kind of fine mesh (nylon or polyester), you can get the beads to move in a way that functions sufficiently. I find that it doesn't tumble totally evenly over time--there will be a channel or two of faster flow, and some areas that don't move as much--but nonetheless, it works well enough and the flow can be adjusted to keep the stuff in the unit and out of the tank. It looks to me as though better absorption is achieved compared with what you see when it's sitting in a bag somewhere.

2) It's easier with a sump than without. (I don't have one.) If you're running a sump, I would definitely consider adding it. If you look at Roland's setup, he has something I think along these lines, but with a different reactor. This way, the water has already been mechanically filtered, yet the unit doesn't have to be hooked up in sequence with anything else. In my case, I have the return line of an Eheim 2217 canister teed off in two directions, with one of them going to the Phosban. The idea is to prevent large detritus from prematurely exhausting the media, but this means more difficult plumbing and in my case, I harvested an extra set of Eheim double-tap connectors (which are $ and I now miss elsewhere) so that I could isolate the unit at maintenance time. The setup as I have it is a little convoluted and can be a little tricky to re-prime, though that may not be so much about the reactor as it is about the height of other stuff I'm running off the other branch--a UV in particular. With canisters, you want to be able to open them up and clean them easily.

3) The reactor is not so compatible with at least some driftwood, or with the biotope look. I had to recharge after a couple of weeks when I put some uncured mopani wood in the tank initially, and I think most wood will leach a bit of tannin in the water that will be pulled out by the purigen. May or may not be an issue with properly aged Malaysian wood or manzanita, but could mean more recharging. Not something to use if you want to go with rooibos tea/peat/almond leaves/etc.

4) Probably a good addition for helping with messy foods or high bioload, so long as it isn't a substitute for water changes. Seems like it can pull out DOCs quickly, or at least before they go through the nitrogen cycle, which might help conditions at certain points in the day--e.g., when feeding water-fouling foods--and might help dissolved oxygen levels a bit while keeping (bad) bacterial load down. So, more like an optional enhancement than a basic necessity. Helps some people cheat a little if they have a high volume of fish, but dangerous if it gives you a false sense of security re. water changes! In my case, I was thinking of it as extra insurance.

One more thing: in my experience purigen lasts a long time and can be recharged many times. It's a bit of a pain to work with as the pellets are really small, but I've bleached mine multiple times, and once you set up the reactor you should be able to leave it alone for months. I don't think you'd need to replace it with new material more than maybe once in a couple of years, if that. Also, a member once linked to a cheap source at a special sale time (it was Pet Mountain), which carries it in large, bulk sizes at a discount. Others might, too.

Anyway, hope this helps. Let us know if you go ahead with it and maybe others will share designs on here as well. There are definitely some people out there who are believers. In may case, I've used it with other cichlids, but am just getting started with discus. Good luck!

[Mattgrizzlybear]

Hey Matthew,

Got your PM and figured I would write back here; yeah, I do have a reactor set up on a tank I intend to use for discus, and it has been in service for about 8 months. It's something that I decided to try out and I would say that I am pretty happy with how it's functioning in general, though I would say the jury is out for me on to what extent I would recommend it. (Maybe in the category of "recommend," but not necessarily "highly" or "strongly."

A few thoughts:

1) the Phosban 550 does work pretty well at fluidizing the material, and with the addition of some kind of fine mesh (nylon or polyester), you can get the beads to move in a way that functions sufficiently. I find that it doesn't tumble totally evenly over time--there will be a channel or two of faster flow, and some areas that don't move as much--but nonetheless, it works well enough and the flow can be adjusted to keep the stuff in the unit and out of the tank. It looks to me as though better absorption is achieved compared with what you see when it's sitting in a bag somewhere.

2) It's easier with a sump than without. (I don't have one.) If you're running a sump, I would definitely consider adding it. If you look at Roland's setup, he has something I think along these lines, but with a different reactor. This way, the water has already been mechanically filtered, yet the unit doesn't have to be hooked up in sequence with anything else. In my case, I have the return line of an Eheim 2217 canister teed off in two directions, with one of them going to the Phosban. The idea is to prevent large detritus from prematurely exhausting the media, but this means more difficult plumbing and in my case, I harvested an extra set of Eheim double-tap connectors (which are $ and I now miss elsewhere) so that I could isolate the unit at maintenance time. The setup as I have it is a little convoluted and can be a little tricky to re-prime, though that may not be so much about the reactor as it is about the height of other stuff I'm running off the other branch--a UV in particular. With canisters, you want to be able to open them up and clean them easily.

3) The reactor is not so compatible with at least some driftwood, or with the biotope look. I had to recharge after a couple of weeks when I put some uncured mopani wood in the tank initially, and I think most wood will leach a bit of tannin in the water that will be pulled out by the purigen. May or may not be an issue with properly aged Malaysian wood or manzanita, but could mean more recharging. Not something to use if you want to go with rooibos tea/peat/almond leaves/etc.

4) Probably a good addition for helping with messy foods or high bioload, so long as it isn't a substitute for water changes. Seems like it can pull out DOCs quickly, or at least before they go through the nitrogen cycle, which might help conditions at certain points in the day--e.g., when feeding water-fouling foods--and might help dissolved oxygen levels a bit while keeping (bad) bacterial load down. So, more like an optional enhancement than a basic necessity. Helps some people cheat a little if they have a high volume of fish, but dangerous if it gives you a false sense of security re. water changes! In my case, I was thinking of it as extra insurance.

One more thing: in my experience purigen lasts a long time and can be recharged many times. It's a bit of a pain to work with as the pellets are really small, but I've bleached mine multiple times, and once you set up the reactor you should be able to leave it alone for months. I don't think you'd need to replace it with new material more than maybe once in a couple of years, if that. Also, a member once linked to a cheap source at a special sale time (it was Pet Mountain), which carries it in large, bulk sizes at a discount. Others might, too.

Anyway, hope this helps. Let us know if you go ahead with it and maybe others will share designs on here as well. There are definitely some people out there who are believers. In may case, I've used it with other cichlids, but am just getting started with discus. Good luck!

Do you think one of those hang on back reactors would work? Thanks for the help

[Tshethar]

I do think you could do it that way, and might even recommend it if you weren't running a sump. The Phosban units could be run that way, and others too, I'm sure. The place to think hard in that case would be what kind of prefilter to run. Personally, I would think about whether you could do something that filtered more than the typical prefilter sponges folks are wont to use--i.e., stuff like hydro-sponges, Fluval prefilter sponges, etc. I've been surprised by how much detritus gets past those into my canister in the discus tank I'm running, despite the fact that I do daily water changes, siphon feces between them, and don't feed beefheart.

Personally, I would try to work out a prefilter ahead of a powerhead that would allow you to use 50 micron fabric or the like maybe behind a sponge or somehow before the intake, so that you wouldn't have to recharge too frequently. On the other hand, you might just be able to lift the whole apparatus off every so often and sit it on the edge of a 5 gallon bucket filled with bleach & water, and let it recharge itself... rinse for a day or two, lots of Prime or Safe, and return.