Recharging Purigen problems

[Malenurse]

Anyone ever had problems with this? The directions say to soak it in half bleach, half water for 24 hours then in water with chlorine remover for 8 hours. I rinsed carefully before and after and did the water with chlorine remover (changing twice) for 24 hours. After replacing the Purigen in my 12 and 2.5, it was easy to see that the inhabitants weren't happy - candycanes, xenias and kenya tree not opening as they had been; some zoas closing up. I removed the Purigen (250ml pre-packed bags) from both tanks and added a lot of new carbon to both tanks. I plan to do 30% water changes tomorrow. Maube I'm just paranoid and over-reacting. Maybe this has nothing to do with the re-charged Purigen.
Any thoughts?

[dvlax40]

or maybe you shoud have just put the purigen in to a bucket of water after you rised it and tested for chlorine?

[30reef]

Why use Purigen?
In my experience, carbon does wonders. Lignite carbon from 2partsolutions is really cheep and works for me.

[Malenurse]

I read a quite a few positive posts about Purigen and liked the fact that it was "re-chargeable" and hopefully economical in the long-run. I've emailed Seachem tech support to see what they have to say, but as you suggest, I think I'm going back to good old carbon - changed frequently.

[Malenurse]

Seachem says that as long as you don't smell a chlorine odor, everything is OK.

[dvlax40]

and you believe that ????? lol do a test next time. i mean just cuz a cycling tank dosent smell like ammonia dosent mean its done

[Malenurse]

I'm not even sure I believe that the Purigen is OK to use after recharge even if the chlorine test is negative. There may be other "bad things" in re-charged Purigen that have nothing oto do with chlorine. I read about others having problems after re-charge on another forum (wish I could remember where!). I do know that both of my tanks seemed to take a bit of a nose dive after I re-charged the Purigen.