Resin

What is it?
A resin is a material, either artificial or natural that has the ability to absorb one or more chemicals from water. It may do this via ion-exchange or via adsorption.

They are typically sold in shops as a powder or pellet. You place the material in a media bag or pouch and water is passed through it.

Can I recharge it?
Most resins can be recharged once they've absorbed all the chemical they were made for. This of course depends on the supplied instructions but typically water with a high level of sodium chloride is slowly passed through it for an hour or two and the waste salty water contains the chemical. This can not be done indefinitely, typically 5-10 times as other trace chemicals are usually absorbed that are not removed by the salt and so the resin needs to be thrown out.

What chemicals do they remove?
Typically phosphate, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite or silicate depending on the product.

How much do I use?
This varies with the product, follow instructions from the manufacturer.

Typical products
There are a great many resin products available to the customer. Here are a few examples:


 * API PhosZorb - A phosphate/silicate removing product
 * ROWAUSA sell Rowaphos a phosphate/silicate removing product
 * (Hagen) Fluval Lab Series Phosphate/silicates Remover
 * Hagen Phos-X (was called Green-X) Phosphate/silicate Remover
 * Purigen by Seachem - Absorbs ammonia, nitrites and nitrates by removing nitrogenous organic waste
 * PhosGuard by Seachem - absorbs phosphate/silicate (non rechargeable)
 * Zeolite often called Ammo-Chips as sold by API is used to remove ammonia