UV Sterilizer turned water yellow overnight

holdyourlight

New member
Just installed a brand new 40W Aqua UV sterilizer on my 125G tank. Woke up this morning and my water is almost pee color yellow. What the heck is happening? i though UV sterilizers are supposed to make water clear, not the opposite! The water was clear with no yellow at all before i installed the UV last night........ any thoughts?
 
maybe there is mfg. residue on or in the uv. Also could be that it has effected(irradiated) a lot of organisms and algae in the water and if the skimmer has not removed them they are just floating around in the water column. I would contact aqua UV and see what they have to say.
 
it's very odd. i had chloroquine phosphate in the water before hand. wonder if its causing the yellowing from the reaction with UV. i am going to run some GAC for while and hope that clears it up
 
It's from the chloroquine phosphate, same thing happens to me. If you add a lot of carbon it will strip it out, or a large water change (I do close to 100%, anything smaller and the yellow/brown color comes back on my QT system).
 
It's from the chloroquine phosphate, same thing happens to me. If you add a lot of carbon it will strip it out, or a large water change (I do close to 100%, anything smaller and the yellow/brown color comes back on my QT system).

it's just weird because i have dosed CP many times before and the water has never turned yellow. i even used less this time than normal. so are you saying this happens to you in conjunction with a UV sterilizer or just normally when you dose CP?
 
If that's true, which I'm not denying, it would suggest to me that the UV will render the CP useless (because it's likely breaking it down).

FB

i know for a fact that UV does render CP useless, i was just unaware of the two combining to make pee water!!!
 
I have had the exact same effect from starting UV after running 20 mg/l chloroquinine phosphate for two weeks. It is less clear to me that yellow is from CP, but combination of CP and dead algae.
 
Where are you getting your CP? CP in water is clear, the cheep stuff that is cut with who knows what turns the water yellow.

The stuff I got from ebay turns yellow. The CP I got from the compounding pharmacy does not.
 
There are only a few sources in US worth mentioning that also provide a COA from pharm companies. The discussion was yellow/green color bodies when UV is turned on which is entirely different than poor quality. I use National Fish Pharmacy in Florida. The question in my mind is the CP gone when water changes and carbon/GFO removed the color. I did have phosphates go from 1.1 mg/l to 0.45 mg/l overnight with GFO. I am sort of going away from delicvate ich magnets in future as I did have one loss. CP cleared active ich in 4-5 days. It was very water soluble so I don't beleive the banter it binds to substrate to high degree.

Where are you getting your CP? CP in water is clear, the cheep stuff that is cut with who knows what turns the water yellow.

The stuff I got from ebay turns yellow. The CP I got from the compounding pharmacy does not.
 
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