Purigen problem???

[showtime305]

<span style="color: black;">Has anyone that uses Purigen noticed a drastic pH drop when it's first added? Today I replaced my carbon filter cartridge and also added a bag of Purigen inside the filter box. Here are the stats to show how my tank was affected.</span>

<span style="color: black;">Time---------pH</span>
<span style="color: black;">6:00pm------8.14 - added new filter cartridge and Purigen</span>
<span style="color: black;">8:00pm------8.05</span>
<span style="color: black;">9:00pm------7.97 - lights turn off</span>
<span style="color: black;">10:50pm-----7.84 - I pulled the Purigen and added some buffer to give the tank a pH boost.</span>

<span style="color: black;">I'm still monitoring the problem just incase it's my filter cartridge and not the purigen.</span>

 

[showtime305]

I think I'm going to give Seachem Support a call during their business hours. I've searched RC and I'm only seeing one thread where someone has mentions the same problem. I'll have to do some testing tonight to make sure everything is fine in my tank. I hope I didn't stress my precous frags by adding the buffer to help boost my pH. I just couldn't risk seeing my pH at 7.5-7.6 in the morning.

 

[showtime305]

<span style="color: black;">I've been watching my pH level for an hour now and it's beginning to stabilize. I ended up hooking up my air pump to see if the increased oxygen levels would help raise the pH and it did. Now I'm thinking the problem may be caused by the activated carbon in the new filter cartridge. I must say that it's a very small amount of carbon in there but the tank is only 10g with no skimmer. The only means of oxygenating the water was 1 MH900 pointing to the surface and a power filter that trickled water into the tank. I would think that these would be enough but could I be wrong? Looks like I’ll be in the market for a skimmer to help clean and oxygenate my water. I'm going to figure out which product cause the problem tomorrow while my lights are on and my tank can handle a small pH drop.</span>

 

[showtime305]

Haha! Isn't it funny that I started a thread asking for help and I seem to be solving my own problem and posting notes to myself. Atleast I didn't reply to one of my post asking a question about my setup. I don't know if that sounds right but I hope you get it.

 

[glxtrix]

was the purigen properly rinsed off befor putting it in the tank? I know it will heat up and that might in turn eat up some of the available o2....orrrr that could be total bs and ......yeah I'll leave it at that.

 

[showtime305]

I rinsed it pretty well. The carbon got a good rinsing also.

 

[vettesarebest]

lol AJ your crazy.