UV: helpful or a cool light to make your velvet posters glow?

pktech

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Sooo what do you guys think? This could be placed in the "lighting section"(I'd rather it not) but since I consider most of you my buddies, I'd like to know your thoughts.

For the record I run a 150 fowlr with a juvi scribbled, a juvi rock beauty that's a real slow grower, shark nose goby, cleaner wrasse, a misc fairy wrasse (indentified as a female Cirrhilabrus cyanopleura) & a wonderful multibar angel (who I've gotten to sucessfully eat :)) I haven't eaten it yet ;)

Admittedlly the tank maintenace has been lacking lately & that will change shortly.
 
Gotcha - the 9 watters don't do much from what I've read - I figure 25 & up is where to start.
 
UV is great, but making it effective take a use wattage.

That's another good point. I've seen a pretty wide range on the Effective wattage. Additionally, I think getting the dwell time or flow through the sterilization chamber is probably very important and potentially difficult to achieve.

It's something that likely takes a fair amount of thought before setting up to make sure you have an effective set up. Then once it's set up, there is the maintenance on the bulbs, cleaning and replacing.

What are you trying to accomplish? Extremely clean water or just using it as an insurance policy?

I know I mentioned Ozone as an effective means of the latter, but i'm pretty sure it's important that the skimmer you are using is of high quality materials, as Ozone has a tendency to destroy whatever it comes in contact with. I have a Euroreef RC 500, which is of pretty high build quality and even in that you can see crazing in the acrylic from the previous owner using ozone.

two pennies.
 
UV can be a good water polisher by zapping algae spores; that's why pondkeepers love them. They will not, and cannot, eliminate or prevent parasite problems. I'd bet that for every UV in current use, hobbyists have 5 in junk boxes. But in response to your velvet poster question; PETCO probably carries tank-safe Velvet Elvis posters.
 
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