Seachem Prime and Seachem Purigen are both designed to maintain your fish tank at optimal conditions for your fish and other aquatic pets. So, can you use both of these two products together? You can find out in this guide at Aquarium Blueprints.
Can you use Seachem Prime and Seachem Purigen at the same time?
According to Seachem, you can safely use both Prime and Purigen at the same time.
Purigen can become toxic when used with an amine-based slime coat product. This is because the resin of Purigen will bind with amine. When this combination is exposed to chlorine, then it will result in chloramine being produced. Both chlorine and chloramines can cause issues with your fish tank.
Fortunately, while Seachem Prime can promote slime coat growth, it is not amine-based.
When should you use Seachem Prime?
Seachem Prime is mainly designed to be a water conditioner as it will remove the aforementioned chlorine and chloramines. If you are using tap water (which contains these chemical compounds) for your aquarium, then we highly recommend that you add Prime directly to your tank beforehand.
The other major benefit of Prime is that it will temporarily detoxify the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates compounds. While this effect will only last a maximum of 48 hours, you can safely re-dose Prime over and over again until you find a more permanent way to keep ammonia, nitrites and nitrates at safer levels.
For the best aquarium water conditions, you should aim to have 0 ppm of ammonia and 0 ppm of nitrites. For nitrates, you should aim for less than 40 ppm if you are keeping hardy species or less than 20 ppm if you are keeping fragile species.
For a more permanent way of getting rid of ammonia and nitrites, we recommend that you check out this guide. To find out how you can reduce nitrate levels, you should take a look at this article.
As we stated before, Prime will also help promote slime coat growth, which should help your fish fight off any infections. This product should reduce small traces of heavy metal as well.
When should you use Seachem Purigen?
Seachem Purigen is designed to absorb any organic wastes in your tank water column. By doing so, it will prevent the wastes from turning into ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. As a result, you will be able to slow the rate of production for these toxic nitrogen compounds.
Purigen is also great at making your tank water look crystal clear as it will absorb any impurities.
The best time to use Purigen is when you notice that the ammonia, nitrite and/or nitrate levels in your tank is reaching unsafe levels. You can also use this product if you want to make your look clearer.
Keep in mind that the Purigen resin has a limit when it comes to absorbing wastes. As a result, you need to regenerate the product occasionally in order to maintain its effectiveness.
If you want to know what’s the different between Seachem Matrix and Seachem Purigen, then you can check out this comparison.