# Purigen



## wngt368 (Oct 4, 2008)

Just wondering, does anyone use purigen instead of carbon?


----------



## UnderTheSea (Jun 2, 2008)

I used to use it in my fresh water tanks.


----------



## duffgrot (Jul 4, 2008)

I use it only in emergencies or when doing drastic changes to the setup of my tanks and a lot of bio gets stirred up from my gravel. It is fantastic at removing biological waste from a tank, and can be recharged relatively easily, but the problem I have is that your tank becomes dependent on using it. It removes so much biological waste that the bacterial colony in a tank has very little to feed on and remains insignificantly small. If you use purigen, then if you were to ever stop using it then you would essentially have to cycle your tank, which is not a good thing in an established tank.

The best application for purigen would be for extremely ammonia/nitrite/nitrate sensitive fish, such as discus. I know a few discus breeders who swear by the product.

I find it's handy to keep around when doing drastic changes to a tank to prevent ammonia spikes, but for everyday use I would prefer to just add more bio media such as biochem stars or matrix and let the bacteria do the work as it is more sustainable and adjusts itself according to tank conditions.


----------

