UV or Ozonizer.. for prevent Ichtyo

[drago2shaoline]

Hello, my name Salvo,
I'm Italian and I have an aquarium of 1200 liters for only fish and soft corals.
On your site I often find very important information for my aquarium.
The tank is managed by a method DSB. In Italy we use short the UV in aquarium also because most aquarists prefer tanks full of sps corals.
I am looking for an effective way to protect the best possible my fish from Ichtyo.
I bought an ozonizer 50 milligrams and a 18 watt uv lamp, but not know how to use it and if you use it.
How you manage your tanks? use these two products?
I hope I can confront with you and help my tank to get better
thanks and sorry for my bad English

Salvo

 

[snorvich]

Neither product (UV or Ozone) will prevent ich. Best way to do so is by employing tank transfer or other quarantine protocol.

 

[drago2shaoline]

Hi Snorvich,
tanks for reply. I have a little quarantine tank (50 litri) ,I never used, for fear of creating problems to the fish. I have a fish only tank under construction so every 15/20 days I'm doing 1/2 placements.
But now my navarchus after 2 weeks in the tank, has white dots, and I'm thinking of putting it in the quarantine tank but do not know where to start.

 

[Dmorty217]

Hi Snorvich,
tanks for reply. I have a little quarantine tank (50 litri) ,I never used, for fear of creating problems to the fish. I have a fish only tank under construction so every 15/20 days I'm doing 1/2 placements.
But now my navarchus after 2 weeks in the tank, has white dots, and I'm thinking of putting it in the quarantine tank but do not know where to start.

Read up on the Tank Transfer Method (TTM) Snorvich started it and will have all the info you need to get your angel ich free without the use of meds... Your DT will have to sit fallow for 72 days to rid it of ich

 

[ThRoewer]

UV won't prevent or treat Ich or other similar parasite outbreaks within your tank.

However, UV, if employed correctly, can significantly reduce the likelihood of ich and other pathogens spreading from one tank to another in a connected system.
But for that purpose you need a commercial grade UV sterilizer with at least 250 watt and replace the bulb every 3 month (costly).
An 18 W UV sterilizer is a toy and only useful to control algae and bacteria blooms.

 

[snorvich]

I use UV on my pond as a water clarifier and it works well for that purpose. The post above is accurate.

 

[ThRoewer]

I have seen UV sterilizers employed to prevent disease transfers from tank to tank at a large importer and wholesaler. But they used something like a 500 to 1000 W lamp.
That is a good solution for that case but hardly feasible for a private tank.

 

[Mishri]

From everything I've read the wattage depends on how many GPH you are running through it. I found a list awhile ago that showed exactly the dosage of UV needed to kill Ich(along with hundreds of other things) and you would use that data in a formula for gph/wattage to find out what you needed. I also saw another source, a table that showed 25 watts can work, but needs slower speeds, something like 250gph if I remember the table correctly. (It isn't quite a 1:10 ratio).. basically it needs a minimum amount of exposure to UV.

 

[snorvich]

Preventing ich spread across tanks that share water is doable as ThRoewer says. Preventing ich within a single tank is not.

 

[ThRoewer]

It is not only the flow rate but how thick the layer of water (= clearance between bulb and mantle) is around the bulb since the penetration depth is depending on the wattage, length and diameter of the bulb. The other variable is the exposure time (flow along the bulb). For a 25 W bulb to work the clearance can't be more than 1 or 2 mm and the flow needs to be very slow if you want to have a reliable result.

Even more important is to change the bulb every 3 to 4 months as the radiation will alter the transmission properties of the bulb glass and slowly turn it opaque for the UV wavelengths you need. The catch is that you can't see the difference with the naked eye and the bulb looks like it is working fine while all the pathogens swim by unaffected.
With the bulbs being rather pricey many will change them too late (or not even know how many hours their lamp has been on) and then have a UV sterilizer that is completely ineffective.

And of course UV only works to limit the spread of a disease from one tank to another connected tank.
But due to the nature of this method not even that is guaranteed, especially if you use a low wattage bulb that is just strong enough to penetrate the water layer around it. All you need is some particulates to shadow a free swimming theront or a protomont attached to it and it was all for nothing.
If you want it to be somewhat reliable you need to go for over kill with high wattage, ideally two bulbs in series, a good particulate filter in front of it and ideally also use other sterilization methods like ozone for example so that your UV lamp is just the last layer of defense.

But since Ich and it's colleagues can also spread via droplets of tank water, wet equipment or even hands (anything wet with tank water) it will ultimately fail to completely isolate one tank from another, especially if they are stacked above each other.

In my opinion it is only useful at importers/wholesalers to limit the spread of infections, and only if combined with other preventive measures such as sterilizing all catching equipment between uses.
I can tell you that in real world commercial applications this is not completely feasible as you simply don't have the time to wash your hands or sterilize the nets when going from one tank to the next.

On a LFS system it could have some use too if they would be willing to spend the money for the equipment and employee training. But unfortunately most of them are either uninformed or don't give a sh**.

 

[drago2shaoline]

hello guys,
thanks for the many responses .. unfortunately as I had thought it UV ozone it can defeat this disease, but limit it to the maximum.
Now my first thought is to save my navarchus who took the ichtyo for stress, I have a xanthurum who detests.
Can you give me the link of the topic of snorwich?

 

[snorvich]

The general parasite treatment sticky is here. Look at tank transfer as well as the specific parasite description.