Are UV's really worth it???

[mattsilvester]

Personally, I fail to see the point of UV. Sure it "helps" fight ich etc. but if you read enough about ich, you will quickly see that all uv does is slow ich down..... not prevent or eliminate it.

It is more effective in commercial settings as it helps prevent it propogate through different tanks because all the water that goes from tank A to tank B must first pass through the filter system, which means only uv sterilized water passes between tanks...... but again it will not eliminate it. where as in our tanks, even with a turnerover of 10 times an hour (most folks have 5 max) the ich still has plenty of time to make it to a substrate before getting sucket down the overflow, and ultimately passed through the UV.........

The only way to eliminate ich and gaurantee it, is strick and effective quarantine and hypo.

Ozone > I see the point > water clarity, ORP, skimmer performance.... and like UV, it helps against ich...... but it will not prevent an outbreak, and it will not cure it.......

 

[tmz]

I agree qt and treatment is much more important than uv and the only effective way to prevent an out break of cryptocaryon irritans unless it's in your tank already . Even if the cryptocaryon parasites pass through the sterilizer and many don't, those that do would likely not be erradicated unless the sterilizer was significantly oversized or the flow was very slow.
Further,I don't think uv would have any effect on flukes since they live on the fish's skin.
However, I do believe uv is more effective against the more lethal dinoflagellate algae amyloodinium(velvet ) and those secondary infections spread by watrerborne bacteria since these organisms are smaller and the lethality of uv radiation depends upon the amount the organism recieves relative to it's size.