UV Sterilizer

[nanafish]

Hi Folks- New to posting on the forum. Would like to hear your pros/cons on using an UV sterilizer. I have a 125 gal Reef tank- it is just starting- have about 4-5 fish, inverts, lots of sps/lps. Was batting the thought of this around- what does this thing do ? Does it make the electric meter spin like a whirling dervish? Will it benefit my water quality any? I do water changes. My hubby plumbed a pvc line to the tank from the basement and I just use a sump pump to propel the water- SWEET HUH!!!! Beats carrying the RO/DI up the steps.(Oh well had to honk the horn for hubby!)
Lets hear the views....:fish1:

 

[KillerOctopus]

In a FOWLR system I would say run a UV, but I don't believe in using them in reefs. Who's to say it doesn't kill good bacteria off as well as the bad.

 

[chrissreef]

imo only use UV if the fish get Ich (in a reef tank)... and even then it better be a big UV

 

[steelhead97]

I would recommend using it, it cleans the water and eliminates green algae growth. I know that when I did not have it my fish suffered a mild form of ich, not severe enough to kill them but you could see tail and fin rot and spots on those areas but since i used UV they've been free of those diseases. It does not use a lot of energy as the bulb is low wattage 20 watt uv is a fairly large uv for tanks over 100 gallon. You will need a small pump to pump the water through the sterilizer and that uses a little bit of energy too but you dont need a large pump, usually a small powerhead will work fine.

 

[Recty]

I think the "standard" UV bulb for a 75g is about 9 watts, if you're going bigger, it's probably going to be around 20 watts. So no, it is by no means an electrical hog. Electricity is 13 cents a kilowatt here, so running a 20 watt UV sterilizer would cost me about $0.43 a week.

As far as their usefulness... that is kind of up to debate. Ich doesnt always stay in the water stream, there is only a small portion of their lifespan that actually is a free swimming form. Most of their time is spent either sucked onto the fish or sitting on the bottom. A UV sterilizer is by no means going to eliminate ich from your tank or most other diseases. However, it can help to keep it under control.

I'm not sure how much you know about UV, but it KILLS LIFE. You'll kill all the bad stuff in the water that flows through it and all the good stuff. If you're running a reef tank, you really want the good stuff in the water. To me, that is more important than running a UV to kill off just some of the bad stuff.

I guess I wouldnt go with a UV sterilizer. If you practice good quarantine techniques you shouldnt ever need one, to be honest.

 

[euod]

A firm believer on UV. Nothing can knock ich out as UV. Currently using 40W in 180. Recently I added a lot of fish to display tank w/o quarantine no problem but decided for other reason to add a couple of fish into a 30 gal w/o UV and with 3 cleaner shrimps and still have a massive ich explosion for the past 3 weeks. Tried many products except Cu, past and present, but no avail. so I am currently running a 40W UV on it for a short duration.

 

[lth03]

I do not use UV on my reef tank,I have my cleaner wrasse do the ich remove job for me.UV kill anything flow through it and not really benefit that much for reef tank,only see very effective on fish only tank.

 

[Moonstream]

IMO, UV is ineffective in killing ich. in euod's case, it is entirely possible that the fish he added to his 180 didnt HAVE ich, but the fish he added to his 30g DID. not all fish have ich, all the time. it is a matter of chance and care, IMO.

and I would NEVER get a cleaner wrasse for the job of cleaning ich. they might do it, they might not, but it will NOT be enough to maintain them. you would need to have many thousands of fish all badly infected with ich to have a cleaner wrasse be able to live off exclusively ich.

cleaner wrasses do very badly in home aquariums, and, for that matter, public aquariums as well. they dont take well to eating frozen foods, because naturally they eat parasites off of other fishes. they usually end up starving in a short time when kept in captivity, and they also often come in with parasites of their own. HOWEVER, if you can find a specimen that eats frozen well, then they are supposed to make great additions to peaceful tanks (they will do very badly in aggressive tanks).

IMO, I would rather spend more money on coral then on something that is expensive and is of questionable usefulness.

 

[huntinweim]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12920171#post12920171 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Moonstream
IMO, UV is ineffective in killing ich. in euod's case, it is entirely possible that the fish he added to his 180 didnt HAVE ich, but the fish he added to his 30g DID. not all fish have ich, all the time. it is a matter of chance and care, IMO.

I don't want to hijack this thread but it was my understanding that all fish carry the parasite. It was just that a healthy unstressed was resistant and stressed fish allowed it to manifest itself.

 

[Recty]

All fish dont HAVE to carry the parasite... it is possible to have an completely ich free tank. The methods to go about doing that just take time, like months of time.

Let your main tank run fallow at least 2 months with at least 80 degree water temperature. This virtually garauntees that all the ich in the tank has gone through a life cycle without being able to host on a fish and therefore it wont reproduce. In the meantime, in quarantine tanks you have treated all your fish for ich, through the use of chelated copper or formalin plus maybe some freshwater dips. For my fish, I mix 2.7 mg of 37% formalin per gallon in a freshwater dip before putting into quarantine, should kill off ich. Be vigilant about siphoning off the bottom of your bare bottom quarantine tanks. You should be able to reintroduce your fish after the two months of your tank running fallow and be ich free.

 

[jmicky41]

I am a UV believer, but a UV must be sized properly, the flow rate through it must be correct and the bulb needs to be changed frequently. I never cared much for the "twist type" sterilizers, I like one plumbed inline with the return pump.

I think a UV will not cure ich, but will keep an infestation from getting out of contol. When I turn my UV off, (mostly in the summer to help keep the tank cool) - I get a lot more algae on the glass.