75 gallon Planted Office Tank Journal

[Slappy*McFish]

When you say "foam", can you link me to a product or picture? I am not sure what you're talking about. My best guess would be Polyurethane Foams, but are these safe?

I'm pretty sure he's referring to the foam sponges/pads that come with the filter. I agree that the quilt batting will clog that filter and impede the water flow too much. If you use regular filter floss, remember to use it loosely and never pack it in there tight, otherwise don't even bother with it. It will just increase the frequency of maintenance required on the filter.

 

[moi-eater]

I am using the polyester fiberfill that I posted pics of previously in a 2213 and a 2217 and it isn't impeding the flow too much or getting clogged quickly.

 

[geekpryde]

Regarding purigen in planted tank question I posed to Tom Barr, I did some more reading and found a few links some of you may be interested in.

The long and the short of it is, purigen seems to be fine in planted tanks. (some of these are on the seachem site)

Link 1

Purigen does nothing but positive things for the Aquarium water. It absorbs like no other, and makes the water crystalline. I love mine, never use a canister without it!

Link 2
Link 3
Link 4

Purigen works very well in a planted tank. Purigen will remove nitrogenous organic waste; it will not directly remove nitrates (therefore, it will not be removing what the plants need). Purigen does come in a pre-bagged 100mL size (the other sizes of Purigen do not come with a bag). Purigen will not directly decrease your nitrate level, but it will help to prevent it from rising.

Seems like there are enough people who use it in planted tanks, that if it ate the fertz, someone would have posted about this somewhere. I still hope Tom gives it his stamp up approval, but in the meantime, I ordered some.

So, now that my master plan to put a ton of my homebrew fine filter pads in the new classic 2217 seems like it will be too much material to pull the water through, I am looking to doing something like 1 Blue Pad then good amount of Seachem Purigen in "the bag" (also by Seachem), then two white filter pads.

By the way, the replacement 2217 came in today, but now I need to wait for the 1L of Purigen I just ordered comes in. Maybe I will hook up the 2217 with only a few pads while I wait.

 

[dundadundun]

seems to me with a little gap here and there your original plan of stacking might work. i would definitely put 1 layer of micron pad before your impeller though to keep bits from intruding there.

i could be completely off as i don't own a 2217, but that's my thought.

 

[geekpryde]

seems to me with a little gap here and there your original plan of stacking might work. i would definitely put 1 layer of micron pad before your impeller though to keep bits from intruding there.

i could be completely off as i don't own a 2217, but that's my thought.

Just turned on the secondary polishing filter for the first time to test a few things. By the way, Kens Fish really came through with replacing the busted 2217, so keep them in mind as a vendor.

So, my purigen is not in yet. And I dont have a good way to keep all the bits of polyester out of the motor, as you suggest. I am going to soak them in water and shake as much loose as I can, but for now I wanted to test exactly how many pads I can stack up without restricting flow. Obviously, the longer I have the thing running, the outflow will slow as the filter clogs. But check this out:

Test 1: 1 x Blue eheim filter pad, 4 x fine white eheim filter pad, 1 x black (carbon?) pad. They are stacked in order as list, from bottom to top. There is obviously alot of empty canister space, which I just filled with water after priming.

Test 1 Conclusion: After running for 10 mins the water is blasting out of the spraybar, as far as I can tell, 4 x white pads restrict flow a negligible amount, at least until it gets clogged. :thm:

What does this prove? Well to me it proves that the Classic 2217 is strong enough to pull water through at least 5 x 1-inch pads. The output is very strong. In fact, it's making me realized how NOT powerful my main filter is putting out water. Time for cleaning after only 2 months?

So, next I want to try even more white pads, or maybe my home brew ones, maybe with a method to space some of my pads apart. Something like 5 pads, then a spacer, than more pads.

Test 1 will run all night, and see what we can pull out of the water. Photos of how dirty/not dirty the white pads got. My tank is full of junk, so it may be a suprise how nasty they get after only 12 hours.

opcorn:

 

[moi-eater]

Cutting egg crate (lighting diffuser) or something similar into circles that fit into the 2217 might work as spacers.

 

[bored4]

The Purigen description say

Not to be used with any products with slime coat in them ,this can cause the product to become toxic.

Does that mean you shouldn't use it with Prime?

 

[geekpryde]

Does that mean you shouldn't use it with Prime?

Great questions. I have no idea. This would be a major concern for alot of people, since alot of people use Prime or Stress Coat.

Need some expert opinions. Chime in people.

 

[geekpryde]

I looked into if using Seachem Prime for water changes in conjunction with Seachem Purigen would cause problems. A simple google search produced the following quote from Seachems site:

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.™

So, Prime is totally fine to use. :thm:

Regarding API Stress Coat, API has this to say (also found with a google search)

Stresscoat is not an amine based product so it should be ok to use with the purigen. We do not test with other companies products however so I cannot say for 100% there will be no problems but I can tell you that the product is not amine based.

So there you have it. Purigen is going into some filter socks, and then into the Classic 2217.

The water is looking great with the second filter going. The flow out of the primary (biological) filter is so slow, if I have time tomorrow, I am going to break it down and see what's going on. Work has been busy lately, so I may not be able to get to it until late, but here should be plenty of pics once I get the thing open.

 

[geekpryde]

Other thoughts:

Today I tried feeding Tubiflex worms again, but instead of sticking the cuve to the glass, which my fish simply ignore, I soaked a single cube in tank water for about 30 mins, and then mashed it up a bit, and dripped this tubiflex/water mixture into the tank slowly, a little bit 3 times spread apart by 5 mins or so. They like it much better this way, just something you may want to try. I know some people soak blood worms this way, but for my fish, they devour the things tossed on to top of tank water dry, so really no point in soaking them unless you want them to sink fast.

I have 2 nerite snails that seem to have stopped moving, and were flipped upside down. They do not smell bad, so I cant tell if they are dead. All other snails seem fine, but these guys have not moved in 48 hours. The only thing I can think of is too much Iron. I can't seem to find a really good source of how much Fe to dose along with EI. I do have a Fe test coming, but I hear Fe water tests are notoriously inaccurate. Is 1/4 teaspoon 3 x week too much in 75g? Tomorrow I will be looking into this more.