Seachem Purigen is a specialized filter media that is designed to keep your fish tank water healthy. So, is this product capable of reducing ammonia, nitrites and/or nitrates?
You can find out in this article from Aquarium Blueprints.
Quick Summary
Seachem Purigen will remove organic wastes in your fish tank before the wastes decompose into ammonia. As a result, this product will slow down the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate growth. On its own, it likely won’t remove the nitrogen compounds that have already built up in your tank.
With that said, you can use Purigen with other products like Seachem Matrix and Aquavitro Seed to reduce ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Other actions, like water changes and cleaning your tank, should also help quickly remove these nitrogen compounds from the aquarium.
What is Seachem Purigen?
Seachem Purigen is a filter media that absorb organic wastes in your fish tank before the wastes are converted to ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.
Does Seachem Purigen remove ammonia, nitrites or nitrates?
Seachem Purigen does not directly remove ammonia, nitrites or nitrates from your tank water on its own. Instead, this product will slow down the rate at which these nitrogen compounds are produced.
So, if you already have a buildup of toxic ammonia, nitrite and/or nitrate levels in your aquarium, then these compounds may continue to increase in concentration (although at a slower rate than before using Purigen).
How to reduce ammonia, nitrites and nitrates with Seachem Purigen
Although Seachem Purigen won’t directly reduce the ammonia, nitrites and/or nitrates levels in your tank by itself, you can pair it with other products, as well as other actions, to remove the nitrogen compounds.
One of the products we recommend using with Purigen is Seachem Prime. This water conditioner will instant detoxify ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. As a result, your aquarium should be water safe for your fish. We recommend dosing Prime daily until you find a way to reduce ammonia to 0 ppm, nitrites to 0 ppm and nitrates to below 40 ppm (or below 20 ppm if you are keeping a sensitive fish species).
You may also want to add Seachem Matrix, which is a highly porous filter media that contains an abundance of surface areas for beneficial bacteria to grow on. Once established, these colonies will eventually reduce the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates from the tank water.
Even with Seachem Matrix, the beneficial bacteria colonies can take many weeks to fully establish and be effective at removing the nitrogen compounds from your aquarium. In order to speed up this process exponentially, you can add live bacteria directly by using a product such as the Aquavitro Seed.
You can purchase any of the aforementioned complementary products on Amazon with the following links:
- Seachem Prime(#CommissionsEarned)
- Seachem Matrix(#CommissionsEarned)
- Aquavitro Seed(#CommissionsEarned)
In addition to using the aforementioned products, you can also do water changes, add live plants, reduce food portions, vacuum the substrate, rinse your filter media and clean your tank. All of these actions should help with reducing the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate footprints in your aquarium.