Help! Purigen Recharge gone Wrong. Acan dying

[godzen]

So I followed seachem's revised instruction on recharging purigen to the T and after a few hours of putting a 100mL bag of recharged purigen back into the sump, my Green Hydnophora bleech completely white (which I didn't care much for) but my small colony of red acan started to recede. She was doing great prior to the change. I was busy working so didn't give much thought to this as all my fishes were swimming around happily. A day after, the acan got worst so I immediately threw out the purigen. Took this photo today, 2 days after the start of this whole thing. Obviously, acan is sliming all over and isn't doing to hot. Most of the tissue had receded and there isn't much color left on the remaining heads. Is this gone? Can I still save this and if not, should I take this out asap with all the sliming going on? This was my very first acan and I would hate to see it die.

Also, my leopard wrasse which hangs out in front of the tank all the time especially during feeding has gone missing...Is there a way to tell if he is gone?

 

[Augustus]

I'm no expert on acans but I'd say its far from gone. I've had corals that were almost completely white on 90% of the skeleton come back and thrive!

I am curious as to what you think could have happened while recharging the purigen? I don't recall the instructions but I didn't think they had you doing anything to recharge it that would make it toxic to your fish or corals.

 

[swcc]

what are the revised instructions? I might suggest a water change and carbon for your tank at this point. I use and recharge purigen myself for our freshwater tank. I use ro di water with a little bleach overnight. rinse thourghly for a couple minutes with tap water then soak in water with clorine remover overnight. Rinse again and reuse. Are the instructions different now?

 

[godzen]

I'm no expert on acans but I'd say its far from gone. I've had corals that were almost completely white on 90% of the skeleton come back and thrive!

I am curious as to what you think could have happened while recharging the purigen? I don't recall the instructions but I didn't think they had you doing anything to recharge it that would make it toxic to your fish or corals.

so per instruction, soak in 50/50 water/bleach for 24hrs, next rinse really well, soak for at least another 8 hours in a declorinating solution (1 cup of water per 2 tablespoon of prime)...I followed this and a little bit more. However, I think the purigen was leeching residual bleach into my tank, thus explanining the dying corals. I researched on this topic and it seems many people had the same issue with a few successful ones. I say it's not worth it. Just buy a new bag of purigen next time

 

[Fryman]

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I lost a small colony of acans & a bunch of coral bleached but eventually recovered.

Test for ammonia, & add prime or similar if appropriate. Water changes may help. Not much else you can do.

Lesson learned: don't recharge purigen. Not worth the risk.

 

[swcc]

for sure the safest bet is to not recharge it. One reason I may have no problems is I have a couple bags. My freshly recharged bag is kept in a cup of ro for a good month after recharging before use while the second one is in the tank. Perhaps this may be why I never have any issue with recharging.

 

[godzen]

for sure the safest bet is to not recharge it. One reason I may have no problems is I have a couple bags. My freshly recharged bag is kept in a cup of ro for a good month after recharging before use while the second one is in the tank. Perhaps this may be why I never have any issue with recharging.

that's a great idea...however, i'm too nervous to be trying that now....wish I had thought of that sooner...so I guess just leave the acan in there and hopefully it'll heal? The slime won't be toxic to other corals will it?

 

[swcc]

I understand. Oh I also realized I use way less bleach. More like an ounce at most per cup of water. That acan should bounce back. The slime may irritate other corals but won't kill em. Run carbon or another bag of fresh purigen to adsorb the chemicals.

 

[coralsnaked]

I utilize Purigen in all my small tanks. But one thing is for sure, I never recharge it because of the possibility of contaminating the tank. Too easy to screw it up... only a small amount of chlorine residue left from the recharging can mess up a small tank, and Purigen, a couple of tablespoons at a time ain't that expensive. Now with that said, lets remember that Purigen is a synthetic medium designed to bond to organics. that's how it exports disolved organics from the tank. It bonds to them all holds them to themselves. Now you understand how easy it is for Purigen to escape into your tank and that is why you must use special media bags IE "The Bag" or special filters in a reactor to prevent the escape. Now you know you must always rinse Purigen
(including Recharged and dried Purigen) prior to use, or the dust from the Purigen will escape the sock and enter the tank. What ? !!! Yes and what does it do, it bonds to organics like your corals and they don't like it. So they recede quickly! And those that receive the inital blast of dust and get covered will do some silly things to get it off, IE Sliming ect.. Most will eventually recover and not die but sometimes it can take days or weeks. Same effect if you over do it, a little is good so more is better, wrong it strips the water and everything in your tank can recede for a while. But poisoning from chlorine can be quite fatal and sometimes sadly there is no recovery.