# purigen & slime coat



## williamsonaaron (Jan 27, 2010)

Hey All - Was thinking of adding purigen into my filter media to help clear some minor cloudiness. I was wondering if Purigen will also strip out the tannins and tropical extracts I use to stain my water.

I was also concerned when I read online the purigen can be toxic when used with certain slime coat products and dechlorinators. Does anybody know where I can find a list of products that cause bad reactions with Purigen? I found an old post on here with a broken link so no help in the archives?

I'd also be intrested in any other suggestions for helping clean up the slight cloudiness I'm seeing these days.


thanks,


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## OverStocked (May 26, 2007)

It is not toxic with those products, it gets clogged and becomes useless with them. That being said, why are you using slime coat products. In 15 years I never have and can't finda reason to do so. Good quality water is all your fish need.

It will strip tannins though. 

The best dechlorinator to use is Prime. Highly concentrated(other than chloram-x) and actually very cost effective compared to others.


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## Landau (Mar 24, 2010)

Stick with the Purigen - worked great my tank to clear up a major coudiness issue I've been battling for 3 weeks. Tank was noticably clearer each day after adding it and is now crystal clear.

Put it in a real fine bag though - it was pretty much flowing out of my Aquaclear bag. It is also very dense and I had to turn my AQ200 (now called an AQ 50) way down so it didn't bypass it. Works much better in a cannister where I have a mushed the bag into a wide thin layer and put other media on top.

I did also read on SeaChem's site on one of the pages that slime products would make it "Toxic" - Seachems own words. Most of the other pages there just say it slime products make it unusable like over stocked says.

Here I found it in Seachem's FAQ

Q: On some of the Purigen® documentation I have read it says that some slime coat products can contaminate Purigen® and render it toxic. Can you identify these products ? 

A: Only certain slime coat products will cause Purigen® to become toxic; the products that do this are amine based. . Prime® and Safe™ are not amine based and so will not cause this problem. If you're curious, what happens is that the amine compounds can strongly bind to the resin, then when they (the amines) come into contact with any chlorine they will form chloramines which are highly toxic. We offer a stress coat product, StressGuard™, which is not amine based and so can be used in conjunction with Purigen.™


Landau


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## Scottso (Oct 2, 2009)

I can vouch first-hand that if you have purigen in your filters and you use API Stress Coat you will kill a lot of your fish and shrimp if not all of them. The FAQ says only if it comes into contact with chlorine but I find good reason to either doubt that statement or that there are other conditions that can make the purigen toxic.

So take that little blurb from the Seachem FAQ to heart. They really should make that a much more upfront and clear warning than burying it on their website.


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## williamsonaaron (Jan 27, 2010)

Thanks for all the info Guy's - I don't use slime coat but statements like "may become toxic" send my spidy sense tingling, I do use nutrafin aqua plus as a de-chlorinator so I will need to check if it is amine based or not as it also says it helps reduce stress on fish and protects gills and fins.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

over_stocked said:


> It is not toxic with those products, it gets clogged and becomes useless with them.


That's not quite true.

If using amine-containing dechlorinator products during Purigen regeneration, the amines can combine with the chlorine in bleach and then leech chloramines once placed back into the aquarium.

Chloramine is definitely toxic to livestock.

Amquel Plus is another safe one to use, but I also stick with Prime.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

Ditto over stocked: 
I buy dechlor to deal with the chloramine in the tap water, and the resulting chlorine and ammonia. 

I do not buy dechlor to enhance the slime coat, either through adding goo to the water, or by irritating the fish. My fish are slimey enough without the additional slime. 

Prime, Chloramine Buster and similar products are priced about as low as you can get dechlorinator that handles chloramine. 

Products with added ingredients cost more, and do not do things that the fish need.


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## Sky_Walker (Jul 8, 2016)

I have just switched from API to Seachem, including Prime, and I have a bag Purigen ready. However I don't want to risk putting in Purigen until I know it's safe.
How long do the "Amines" from Slime Coat stay in the water after use?
Will Prime clear any risk of the Purigen becoming toxic from the amines?

Thanks


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