Crystal clear water without carbon

[MnFish1]

I think when OP said GAC doesn't remove dissolved organic as good as purigen, that triggered the avalanche. I have been using GAC (super cheap in 1 kg bag) as skimmer replacement long enough to tell how good it is. It does clear up water column as well. Some branded GAC removes organic and traces elements so good that people usually lowered the recomended amount to half or much lower.

I think the problem was when he said "My intentions with this thread are not about reduce amonia, nitrite, nitrate and phostate. The topic is crystal clear water without carbon.
And if Purigen can reduce organic waste (this information is provided by Seachem), it helps to control amonia, nitrites and nitrates by removing nitrogenous organic waste that would otherwise release these harmful compounds. That’s what is written on the bottle label. I don’t know any carbon that can reduce organic waste, so I think there are more advantages using Purigem than carbon"

He also stated "I’m trying these three stuffs because I always thought carbon as a waste of money and I started to research new stuffs."

I only asked for him to back up those statements - which are falsehoods. Some people took that a 'flaming him' or 'criticizing him'. Personally, there was no criticism meant, If someone posts blatant untruths I think they should be questioned. I asked for the rationale for his statement about organic waste, and also how he came to the conclusion that purigen was less expensive - given the chemicals/work it takes to regenerate it. No more no less.

 

[Teri Sullivan]

As many times I got valuable information from this forum, I want to share my new experiences to pursuit the most crystal and clear water I can.
I have three tanks:
- one AIO hospital tank running for 4 months. It has 20 gal, Tunze DOC 9001 skimmer, one box of Marine Pure biomedia balls. No sump, no refugium. The tank has 7 green chromis, one yellow tang, one powder blue tang and one emperor angel. The fishes are in this tank for 2 and half months.
- another tank with 15 gal running for one month as a quarentine tank with Icecap RS 15 sump and Skimz SM163 skimmer. No biomedia and no refugium. The tank has four clowfishes and two anthias I got last friday. Since last week I started to run an Aquamaxx TS-2 sulfur reactor.
- main display with 125 gal, 20 gal sump with refugium, one box of Marine Pure biomedia balls, Pukani and Reef Safe rocks from BRS and Vertex Omega 180i skimmer. No fishes yet because it’s a new tank (first week).
In all three tanks I’m not using carbon/GFO.
In a two little fishes 150 reactor, I’m running Seachem Purigen (in a media bag) with Seachem Matrix with a 400 gph pump. In low flow areas, I put a media bag with Seachem de*nitrate.
I spent $42 with all the three stuffs above and got all from amazon. The three stuffs quantity are enough for my 3 tanks.
The results I’m getting are very impressive. I never saw my tanks with a prestine crystal clear water as I’m seeing now.
And the water tests are perfect: no amonia, no nitrate, no nitrite and no phosphate. And I feed the fishes 3 times a day !
I’m trying these three stuffs because I always thought carbon as a waste of money and I started to research new stuffs. When we have some trouble with the tank water, the carbon can’t help us to reduce amonia, nitrite, nitrate or phosphate. Another “issue” is the life spam. After no more than one month (in avarage), carbon needs to be replaced. The only situation that I think to use carbon is when I need to remove medication from the tank water.
Another thing I noticed is that all skimmers are working “less”.
Seachem Purigen is a regenerative stuff with bleach. After six months (in avarage), I’ll need to soak Purigen in bleach and in two days, they are good to go again. De*nitrate and Matrix don’t need to be replaced or regenerated.
The first tank I used the 3 stuffs combination was the hospital tank and it’s running all the three stuffs for 2 months. Now I’m using the three stuffs in all my three tanks with very impressive results.
Sharing my experiences, I hope to help another fellow reefers to get crystal clear and prestine water and saving money and time to enjoy the hobby.

Very, very interesting! Will do more reading. Thanks!

 

[cwk84]

Well, I’m engineer and I beleive I don’t need to learn sciense to see if my tank water is crystal clear and to understand my water test results. I think it’s the same with with the fellow reefers here and for amazon reviwers.

GAC does the same as Purigen, remove ORGANICS and YELLOWING, which will result in CRYSTAL CLEAR water. That said, if scientists only trusted their eyes, where would we be? Kind of a silly comment of yours don't you think? Think about what you said. You equated crystal clear water with 'my water is actually perfect' and supported that by saying ' I trust my eyes'. How do you know your water is actually clear? Have you tested for toxins, heavy metals etc? GAC removes toxins and heavy metals alongside organic waste and Purigen primarily removes organic waste. If anything, it would make more sense, from a scientific perspective, to use both, GAC and Purigen. However, if your focus is primarily on water clarity and organic waste control, you would achieve the same good results with GAC.
As an Engineer, I'd expect you to be a critical thinker, thus, very critical of online reviews. There are just as many good reviews on carbon as there are on Purigen so you can't go ahead and support your 'findings' with online reviews.
I use Purigen and GAC, and in my case ( currently, I'm battling high NO3) the Purigen does very little. The GAC I use makes the water crystal clear and removes most of the organic waste. The Purigen turned a light beige on one side where the water flow enters the material and that's. This might be due to the GAC outcompeting it as Randy mentioned. I'd have to use a couple bags of Purigen to get the same clarifying effects of good carbon.

As far as Matrix and de*Nitrate, they are the SAME thing. Here from the Seachem forum, answered by a Seachem moderator:

The main difference between the Matrix and De*nitrate are the flow in which they function under. The De*nitrate works best under lower flow rates (<50gph) and the Matrix works at any flow rate. At lower flow rates, the De*nitrate will work as both a nitrifying and denitrifying filter, removing ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates. If the flow is above 50gph, then it will only function as a nitrifying filter, removing ammonia and nitrites. The Matrix will function as both at any flow rate. The De*nitrate works well in a reactor where the flow can be turned down. The Matrix works well in any setup, whether you have a reactor, a canister, a sump, or any other type of filter. The key to any filtration is that it receives maximum water flow through the media at all times. Both of these filtration medias never really need to be replaced, but will need to be rinsed from time to time to remove any detritus buildup that may occur on the outer surface, which can lead to clogged pores and less efficiency of the media.

You just bought a bunch of stuff based on reviews without knowing what it actually does/is. You could have achieved the same results with vodka dosing or macroalgae, which is extremely cheap. And macroalgae would actually take care of your PO4 as well. Neither Purigen nor Matrix and Denitrate removes PO4. Do you even have a low range phosphate test kit, such as the Hanna Checker? If you have a traditional test kit it will show up as 0 when in reality it might be 0.1. Some people also don't follow the instructions of their nitrate test kits. They get a reading of 0 because they don't shake the bottles for long enough. Make sure you use it the right way or you'll end up with my problems. I was just as arrogant and though I totally figured it out. My test kit showed 0 nitrates but I kept having algea issues. I finally decided to do some research and found out that I didn't shake the bottles for long enough. ONce I did that my nitrate test kit showed 160ppm nitrate.

And to enjoy this hobby, do we need to be a scientist?

You don't need to be a scientist but being open to scientific research will save you a lot of money in the long run as you won't fall for the 'snake oil' prducts.

I’m new in this forum but not in this hobby.

You're not new to this hobby yet you didn't know that GAC removes organic waste and clarifies the water.

 

[Robert Vacchiano]

Sea chem denitrate have used it many years ago never really did anything.I think it is a waist of money . Some good live rock would be better in a low flow area

 

[Robert Vacchiano]

Some good live rock in a low flow area of a sump would be good to denitrate the water. Have used Sea chem denitrate many years ago it never did any thing for me. I think it is not worth spending your money on it

 

[cwk84]

And the water tests are perfect: no amonia, no nitrate, no nitrite and no phosphate. And I feed the fishes 3 times a day !

1. No PO4/NO3 is not perfect

2. Beneficial bacteria should take care of ammonia/nitrate, not your chemical filtration

3. Good carbon such as ROX 0.8 makes your water crystal clear to the point where it looks like your fishies are suspended in air.

4. Carbon removes chemicals, heavy metals, medications and other pollutants alongside organic matter and gelbsotff which is what gives your water that yellowish tint.

5. I can feed my fishies multiple times a day without having PO4/NO3 increase thanks to my algae reactor.

I don't want to bash the product because I do think it improves peoples tanks but my opinion is that if you need fancy products to keep your tank stable, you might want to rethink your approach because a successful ecosystem takes care of it isself. I'm only saying this because you made it sound like that without those products you wouldn't be able to feed your fish multiple times while maintaining pristine water conditions.

 

[James Emory]

For me, the simpler the better. I use what I believe is a good skimmer (Simplicity) and a good UV sterilizer. The UV does raise the ORP level considerably compared to what it reads without one. I'm also not a feeding nut and rarely feed my fish more than twice a day and sometimes just once a day. My fish look like they are suspended in air because the water is very clear. I use no canister filter or other means of water polishing, just the mesh filter socks made from nylon.