The Puffer Forum

okay...so im using to boxes of fluval bio max in my bottom tray in my fx5 ...and wanted to know if anybody has tried seachem matrix cause i just ordered
2 liters to mix with the biomax or totally replace if it works out better. if anybody can help me decide on which media would be best for my type of setup.
75 gallon fahaka tank with fluval fx5 running fluval prefilter verytop , seachem purigen blue filter pad and white filter floss in second tray and 2 boxes of fluval biomax in last tray....thanks

I hear the best biomedia is pot scrubbers. Eheim also makes one for some extorted price--apparently it's suppose to be on par with the pot scrubbers. Oh, and good choice on the Purigen. That stuff will probably do more than any amount of carbon you can dump into your canister filter. It's seriously some amazing stuff. I've experimented with it on some absurdly cloudy tanks just to see how effective if it is in comparison to carbon; 100ml of Purigen removed all cloudiness / discoloration within a 24 hour period while carbon seemed to do very little. I swear by Purigen now.

How many times have you been able to regenerate Purigen?

I was wondering the same thing pufferpunk. Does it eventually expire and won't recharge? I know I'm goin to have to use bleach once it turns brown But also can keep it in the bags while I soak in the bleach because man oo man those beads are super tiny

I would also like to hear from everybody to see what they use, and whAt work for them... I know my old biowheels work great from what I could tell. I just want to make sure my canister filter has the right about of media for bacteria to grow

Pufferpunk wrote:How many times have you been able to regenerate Purigen?

I've had some for about a few weeks. I've gotten it to change a very light tannish tint. Some of it is a tiny bit brown. I have yet to have to recharge it. I've actually moved a single 100ml bag from one tank to another just to remove any impurities from the water. It hasn't come close to expiring yet. The way I see it, if I can recharge it at least twice, it's still a lot more convenient than activated carbon.

I'm on about the 5th time of recharging. I use straight bleach & it still gets white. I keep them in the bags but it's sent to me pre-bagged anyway.

Pufferpunk wrote:I'm on about the 5th time of recharging. I use straight bleach & it still gets white. I keep them in the bags but it's sent to me pre-bagged anyway.

Yeah, I buy them bagged also. It's convenient since the beads are so tiny. To buy a bag suitable for Purigen would likely require the bag to have a Velcro closure in addition to having tiny pores to withhold the tiny size of the Purigen beads. It seems more effort than it's worth.

I second pot scrubbers.

Along the same lines as pot scrubbers, they make pool filter media that is identical to it and works well (we have a wholesale pool store in town and a LFS that charges through the nose, gotta improvise) and it's cheap. Look for bio bale on google, very similar to this but more compact and about $10 per cubic foot. http://www.lagunakoi.com/Bio-Bale-Pond- ... c-125.html I have to walk out to the garage to find out exactly what it is and I just got home from work and I'm too lazy....I'll look tomorrow.

ok so i got my order of matrix in and put the whole 2 liters in(it says 1 liter per 100 gallons but i filled up both tray in my fx5 with 2liters) lol hopefully it makes my 75 gallon tank running more Efficient.