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FAQ: Will Seachem Purigen™ slow or disrupt a full cycle?

The short answer to your question is "no", but the long answer is a bit more complicated. Fish produce waste in a few different forms - they produce solid waste (feces), liquid organic waste (urea), and some pure ammonia. Bacteria colonies utilize this waste to grow, converting it first into ammonia (if it isn't already ammonia), then into nitrite and nitrate. Purigen® works by intercepting the organic waste before it can be turned into ammonia, but it is incapable of removing waste once it has entered the nitrogen cycle (it cannot directly remove ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate). This does reduce the waste-load of the tank, so I suppose one could refer to it as "starving" the bio-media, in the sense that it is removing waste that would otherwise be utilized by bacteria colonies. Less organic waste makes its way to the bacteria colonies, so the bacteria colonies do not have to be as large and do not produce as much nitrate.

Using Purigen® will not, however, "starve out" beneficial bacteria colonies. For one thing, organic waste will be utilized or absorbed by whatever encounters it first. If it encounters a bacteria colony first, it will enter the nitrogen cycle and be unavailable to the Purigen®. If it encounters the Purigen® first, it will be removed from the water and will not enter the nitrogen cycle. Additionally, some forms of waste (ammonia) produced by fish are completely unavailable to the Purigen®, and therefore must enter the nitrogen cycle. Even if a massive overdose of Purigen® and a media reactor were utilized, the bacteria colonies would still get at least a little nitrogenous waste, and so would continue to thrive.

When a tank is new, the bacteria colonies need as much organic waste as possible to cycle the tank quickly, so this reduction in total waste works against you. However, once these bacteria colonies are healthy and established, a reduction in waste simply reduces the amount of nitrogen produced - the bacteria colonies are easily able to grow and shrink within to match the amount of organics available to them, and you will not see ammonia or nitrite spikes upon removing the Purigen®.

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