Renew or purigen?

[zebrafish14]

I recently got back into fishkeeping after a ten year or so break. I have a recently established planted tank. In the past, I had used Renew as my chemical media. Now I see that Purigen seems to have revolutionized chemical filtration. Would this be a better choice for use in a planted aquarium than Renew?

[Tech Support EH]

Welcome back, zebrafish14!

Both Renew and Purigen are excellent chemical filtration options for planted tanks, as they remove unwanted organics, without adding any phosphates to the water, like carbons tend to do.

As you alluded to, though, Purigen really is the ultimate filtration product, as it has excellent removal capacity, polishes the water unbelievably well, and can be regenerated 6-8 times. If it were my choice to make, I would go with Purigen.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions!

[zebrafish14]

I have some Renew left over from before, so I will use that up, then switch over to Purigen. From what I have read, it seems that Purigen may not be ideal when cycling a new tank, sol this should work out nicely for me.

Thanks!

[Tech Support EH]

That is correct; we typically recommend that one wait until cycling has completed before placing Purigen into the filter.

Have a wonderful day!

[zebrafish14]

So here we are nearly a year after I set up this planted aquarium. I used Renew in the beginning, and then switched over to Purigen. I am amazed at the clarity of the water! There's only one drawback though---with all the efficency of Purigen, I can't go with a blackwater setup. The Purigen simply pulls out all the coloration from peat and bogwood. Since I really like the look of the stained water, I think i'm going to switch back to Renew for my blackwater setup and use Purigen in other settings.