# DIY Purigen reactor



## billb (May 29, 2009)

I am a fan of Purigen, but not a fan of the media bags. These never seem to provide uniform flow. When I take out the bag, it is clear that some beads have been exposed and soaked up organics while most of the interior is still white!
The reef community uses reactors designed to provide a fluidized bed for media that absorbs things like phosphates. Unfortunately they do not work well with the tiny Purigen beads ( I read about several disasters!)
The video below shows my DIY reactor. It is working well. I have about 250mls of Purigen in here on a 60 gallon tank. The beads stay suspended and are all exposed to the filter flow. I can see all the beads darkening at the same rate - and much faster than any media bag solution I was able to come up with! The down side is that they need to be recharged at a much faster rate than before! 

A picture:









the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnJDISJd0cg
Bill
Sorry for the noise - I had the NCAA basketball tournament on!


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## GlassCat594 (Mar 20, 2009)

That is some serious filtration.


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## Niyona (Feb 20, 2010)

GlassCat594 said:


> That is some serious filtration.


+1

Wow!


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## bsmith (Jan 8, 2007)

Thats awesome. I'm not familiar with those types of canisters though. Can you explain how the purigen does not get blown into the tank?


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## billb (May 29, 2009)

It is a bit over engineered I suspect.

I had a go with Sulawesi shrimp last fall and lost them. Plenty of mistakes but I definitely over did the water change thing. The tank has matured nicely and all of this filtration is designed to provide a very low nutrient environment with out frequent water changes. I may have another chance with more of these shrimp so - trying to get ready!

Bill


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## bsmith (Jan 8, 2007)

Can someone just purchase the canister you have the purigen in though and perhaps install it inline with whatever filter they currently use?


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## PMaj (Dec 26, 2006)

Billb what kind of screen do you use to keep the Purigen in the filter.


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## billb (May 29, 2009)

bsmith said:


> Thats awesome. I'm not familiar with those types of canisters though. Can you explain how the purigen does not get blown into the tank?


These are standard house water filters. This one is a Pentek 10 cartridge with 3/4 inch fittings. There is a 50 micron pleated polyester filter cartridge inside that keeps all the beads on the inflow side of this filter while still allowing good flow. Currently I have roughly 400gph going through the filter


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## billb (May 29, 2009)

PMaj said:


> Billb what kind of screen do you use to keep the Purigen in the filter.


Probably answered this in the previous post but you could also use a 100 micron filter too. Going smaller than a 50 would start to catch to many fine particles and require that you change the cartridge before the purigen is exhausted. I also have a large 50 micron pleated cartridge ( the big blue 20 inch filter seen on the video) inline before the purigen reactor to filter out particulates.


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## bsmith (Jan 8, 2007)

billb said:


> These are standard house water filters. This one is a Pentek 10 cartridge with 3/4 inch fittings. There is a 50 micron pleated polyester filter cartridge inside that keeps all the beads on the inflow side of this filter while still allowing good flow. Currently I have roughly 400gph going through the filter


Thats great. Thanks for the help.


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## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

Ingenious. Well done. This is a perfect example of using basic materials available to create easy and clean filtration.

IMO, you can never ever over do filtration.

You get a roud:


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## billb (May 29, 2009)

Gatekeeper said:


> Ingenious. Well done. This is a perfect example of using basic materials available to create easy and clean filtration.
> 
> IMO, you can never ever over do filtration.
> 
> You get a roud:


Hey - thanks!
These house water filters are well designed and have many options for media. With a little searching - they are cheap too!


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## cfi on the fly (Jan 28, 2009)

I too am a fan of Purigen, but hate "The Bag". You have to use two of these square shaped bags in a circular type canister or the flow of water will find the path of least resistance. Anyway, they never fit right...I wish someone would invent a circular nylon bag that fits a standard size filter. 

Ive tried the panty hose, and yes they work but require way to much maintenance to make sure they dont rip. I like just taking the whole bag and bleach dipping, cant do that with panty hose too many times, or the hose falls apart.


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## billb (May 29, 2009)

cfi on the fly said:


> I too am a fan of Purigen, but hate "The Bag". You have to use two of these square shaped bags in a circular type canister or the flow of water will find the path of least resistance. Anyway, they never fit right...I wish someone would invent a circular nylon bag that fits a standard size filter.
> 
> Ive tried the panty hose, and yes they work but require way to much maintenance to make sure they dont rip. I like just taking the whole bag and bleach dipping, cant do that with panty hose too many times, or the hose falls apart.


Yup - I tried the panty hose bag too. As you suggest, they don't last!


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## OverStocked (May 26, 2007)

Over at APC Seachem indicates there could be some concern with the beads rubbing against eachother causing them to dust and degrade quicker. I would at minimum slow the flow AND add MORE purigen so that that it isn't rubbing so much.


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## AquaDean (Nov 20, 2009)

I also like Purigen and have found that the Boyd Enterprises Chemi-bags work great. They are super fine mesh so hold the Purigen really good, never had it escape yet. Plus they are super flexible and will conform to whatever filter you put them in. They supposedly make a large and a small size, I've bought a couple of the small ones and use them in Eheim 2213 filters.


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## OverStocked (May 26, 2007)

Gatekeeper said:


> Ingenious. Well done. This is a perfect example of using basic materials available to create easy and clean filtration.
> 
> IMO, you can never ever over do filtration.
> 
> You get a roud:


I agree. These filters are great as a whole. I had a 125 filtered entirely by them and a mag pump. 

Very flexible media option. Great all around. My only concern here is as I posted above.


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## cookingnerd607 (Jun 8, 2004)

Wow, never thought of tossing purigen in there.

I ran one I picked up at the flea market for a few months on my 90 and loved it.

I might have to dig it out again. Ive got about 750ml of purigen in my xp3 In a bag I got from big als.

How often do you bleach yours? How do you manage to keep it all together? Wire sieve?

packing it in tighter worries me.


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## billb (May 29, 2009)

over_stocked said:


> Over at APC Seachem indicates there could be some concern with the beads rubbing against eachother causing them to dust and degrade quicker. I would at minimum slow the flow AND add MORE purigen so that that it isn't rubbing so much.


I have seen their comments on the beads susceptibility to being abraded. I have another reactor on my 90 gallon and have changed these beads twice so far. I have looked carefully for dust or broken beads but have not seen anything significant yet, That said, it may take several recharges to see this effect.

I have tried more purigen but found that with more than 300ml or so the purigen would not all get "fluidized" you start to get piles on the bottom of the reactor. I think flow and amount will need to be optimized. The shape of the canister also matters as does the diameter of the cartridge. the best canister I have tried is theis Pentek. It has a little more of a rounded bottom and the current sweeps away the purigen more effectively than a cheaper canister with a more squared off bottom edge. 

The beads do fill up the folds of the pleats too - sort of like a diatom filter. This may be some help with the abrasion. I am going to be trying a spun fiber cartridge too. It is 50 microns also but has a smooth surface. this should keep beads from settling into the pleats (but it might create more abrasion on the beads. We will see. So far I am pleased and convinced it is more efficient than a bag


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## billb (May 29, 2009)

cookingnerd607 said:


> Wow, never thought of tossing purigen in there.
> 
> I ran one I picked up at the flea market for a few months on my 90 and loved it.
> 
> ...


I had a 4 inch by 8 inch media bag filled with purigen - probably close to 750 mls. I had this in the middle chamber of my Ocean clear 30 filter for a month. It was black on parts of the surface -but was white inside. I removed this and put on a reactor with 250 mls of purigen. It was uniformly dark brown in 1 week! The media bag was not pulling out the organics any where near as effictively as this. Of course that means more rechargeing. The second change was about two weeks. My guess is that the first filter got out much of the excess and the system is cleaner. I do 50 % water changes weekly too! The tank shown in the video has a ery light bioload and I expect it to last longer.

Any way. the beads are not packed at all. They are circulating in the filter. To recharge, I open the filter and dump the cartridge and beads into a plastic pail. I add bleach to this. Not to bad.


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## 76dragon (Feb 11, 2012)

What stops the purigen from going back to the tank throgh the out hose??


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## dantra (May 25, 2007)

I've seen this done by several others on other forums years ago. Some as recently as a few months ago. Works great if that's what you're looking for.

A balanced planted tank does not need any of this for crystal clear water. All you need to do is establish a biological colony. I'll admit I used purigen at the beginning of a newly started tank but after the first month, month and a half, I don't use it because it becomes unnecessary.

The key is to focus on biological filtration. Get that going and clear water will never be an issue. Purigen is a great product and you can become use to using it but it can also make you lazy. Stay on top of basic tank maintenance for a healthy tank.

Dan


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## madness (Jul 31, 2011)

dantra said:


> I've seen this done by several others on other forums years ago. Some as recently as a few months ago. Works great if that's what you're looking for.
> 
> A balanced planted tank does not need any of this for crystal clear water. All you need to do is establish a biological colony. I'll admit I used purigen at the beginning of a newly started tank but after the first month, month and a half, I don't use it because it becomes unnecessary.
> 
> ...


Mostly people are using these because of the livestock in the tanks - specifically discus or high end shrimp.

In those cases they may not be able or willing to plant a tank so heavily that the nitrate levels remain very near to zero.

This is definitely an extreme filter option that doesn't apply to most planted tanks but is certainly of interest for those of us keeping delicate species of fish and inverts.


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## dantra (May 25, 2007)

madness said:


> Mostly people are using these because of the livestock in the tanks - specifically discus or high end shrimp.
> 
> In those cases they may not be able or willing to plant a tank so heavily that the nitrate levels remain very near to zero.
> 
> This is definitely an extreme filter option that doesn't apply to most planted tanks but is certainly of interest for those of us keeping delicate species of fish and inverts.


Actually the majority of the people that were using them were African Cichlids keepers. The cichlids were from lakes Malawi, Victoria, and Tanganyika however there were also quite a bit of people with planted tanks using this method as well with great results.

I beg to differ, it certainly applies to planted tank but it will make you lazy. I know someone on another forum who used this method on his planted tank after seeing a video of it being used on an African Cichlid tank. It inspired him to use it on his own tank and he loves it. This sort of reminds me of Phosphate Reactors used for Marine Tanks.

Dan


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## dantra (May 25, 2007)

There are examples of what I was talking about online. This method isn't new, but it definitely works well.

Eheim 2211 used as a Purigen Reactor. :icon_wink There are some videos of these types of homemade purigen reactors on YouTube

Dan


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## Craigthor (Sep 9, 2007)

I'm still thinking about building one of these for my 220 anyone here running a larger version out of a 10" or 20" filter housing? I would be using a gate valve before the filter to control the flow through it and have it return to the sump.


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## dj2606 (Mar 27, 2009)

Is this the kind of filter you placed in the reactor with the purigen?

http://www.filtersfast.com/P-Pentek-ECP50-10-Pleated-Polyester-Sediment-Filter.asp

It's hard to see from the video because the system is running. But I assume the filter runs down the center of your reactor and the purigen spins freely outside of it. So water enters from one side of the reactor where the purigen is then passes through the sediment filter to the center and exits out the other side......?


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## dj2606 (Mar 27, 2009)

So I have set this system up and cannot keep the housing full of water....


It continues to hover at half full, is there a minimum water flow required or a priming technique?


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## Michiba54 (Nov 24, 2011)

You probably have trapped air in the canister, Just bleed it off one way or another.


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## dj2606 (Mar 27, 2009)

how would you bleed it?


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## Michiba54 (Nov 24, 2011)

You can unscrew the canister enough to let the water out an it should fill.


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## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

billb said:


> These are standard house water filters. This one is a Pentek 10 cartridge with 3/4 inch fittings. There is a 50 micron pleated polyester filter cartridge inside that keeps all the beads on the inflow side of this filter while still allowing good flow. Currently I have roughly 400gph going through the filter





76dragon said:


> What stops the purigen from going back to the tank throgh the out hose??


That should answer your question.


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