who uses UV ?

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11909196#post11909196 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Avi
What I mean is they aren't out and about in the water column. They aren't swimming with the fish. Copepods and amphipods can be seen on the rockwork and on the substrate...for or less where you see a fish like a Mandarin searching for them. Did you ever clean some foam that's in a sump and take a pod and put it into the water of your reef? I'd say that they last about two to three seconds if you do that. Some fish is going to get it just about immediately. They can't survive long enough to be taken into an overflow for the most part so that they ever get to a UV-sterilizer or of the sterilizer is hanging on the side of your tank, to the intake to that. Of course, I wouldn't say that there isn't some time that some pods aren't in the water, but most of those are consumed by fish, rather than taken into a UV-sterilizer. Those that make it to the rockwork are the ones that live to multiply if conditions there are right. In short, IMO, you shouldn't be concerned about the pods if you want to use a UV-sterilizer. If you have plenty of live rock...even better a sump/refugium where you grow macro-algae, the UV-sterlizer won't be an obstacle to having enough pods.

thank AVI I see now what you mean---I'll move more to the left again on the use of a uv sterilzer
I'm such a Benedict Arnold or still receptive to new ideas :lol:

curious why yours is not hooked up---mine isn't either but then I felt it was overkill with the phosban reactor and fuge and was swayed the other way in thinking that copopods would reduce the pod populations

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11909037#post11909037 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dp reefer
Hmmm these arguments still leave me confused about whether or not to use UV. I chose to go with a refugium and phosban reactor as well but I guess if you planned out the plumbing of your system you could minimize the casualties of copepods and amphipods to UV. I guess all you would have to do is have your fuge run straight into your display so that corals and fish could get to them befor the UV. I think that maintaining a population of zooplankton is possible- I dumped a bottle of tiggerpods in my fuge a few weeks ago and at night if I shine a flashlight in my fuge or display there seem to be quite a few buzzing around. With a proper refugium, IMO it is possible to sustain a population of plankton in your system.

capn: In college oceanography we were taught that "planktonic" means an organism that is unable to swim against or out of ocean currents (even though fish are not plankton, their fry are planktonic because they are carried by ocean currents).

sorry this is not really hijacking--if you follow the way this thread is going you will see that the uv really isn't a problem with the copopods---but still IMO given the choice I have had less problems with algae and cyano with the use of the two phosban reactors and the refugium then I ever noticed with the uv sterilzer

 

[Avi]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11909228#post11909228 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by capn_hylinur
thank AVI I see now what you mean...curious why yours is not hooked up

I guess I don't have a good reason for not having it hooked up because they certainly won't do any harm and if you have one, I think it's a good idea to use it. Mine really is a bit too small for my reef and I moved it over to a freshwater tank for a little while. Once I didn't need it there, I just put it away instead of hooking it up. I think your question, capt, motivated me to put it on the sump of my FOWLR because the Hippo Tang, very typically, sometimes comed down, as it has right now, with some ich.

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11909273#post11909273 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Avi
I guess I don't have a good reason for not having it hooked up because they certainly won't do any harm and if you have one, I think it's a good idea to use it. Mine really is a bit too small for my reef and I moved it over to a freshwater tank for a little while. Once I didn't need it there, I just put it away instead of hooking it up. I think your question, capt, motivated me to put it on the sump of my FOWLR because the Hippo Tang, very typically, sometimes comed down, as it has right now, with some ich.

:eek2: now that's the other debate---just when I was cool about this and about to get mine out again too

alot of threads have said that uv sterilizers are not affective against ich---they are somewhat effective of bacteria related diseases but as we both know ich is an invertebrate

seriously--good debate starting here:smokin:

 

[dp reefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11909196#post11909196 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Avi
They can't survive in the water column in a reef-tank long enough to be taken into an overflow for the most part so that they ever get to a UV-sterilizer or of the sterilizer is hanging on the side of your tank, to the intake to that.

Well said, but in the wild they do spent a good amount of their lives in the water column. On a trip on a boat into the SF bay and off a dock in martinez we put out plankton nets into the water at about 10 feet deep where the water was 20 to 50 feet deep and the plankton found was over 90% copepods.

 

[dp reefer]

Hahaha wow this thread has left me more baffled than before. Both sides of the argument present very valid points, I guess maybe a uv sterilizer isn't good or bad then, so just don't waste your money.

 

[dp reefer]

*Correction: if your running a fish only tank, get a uv sterilizer and run it full blast with a slow current to kill ANY possible microbes.

 

[Avi]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11909351#post11909351 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dp reefer
Hahaha wow this thread has left me more baffled than before. Both sides of the argument present very valid points, I guess maybe a uv sterilizer isn't good or bad then, so just don't waste your money.

I really have to agree. I don't have anything against them, but they just aren't so effective in a reef and so there are a lot of other things on which money is better spent. The only place I believe they are genuinely effective and worth the effort as somewhat of a priority is in a fancy goldfish tank, in which there is a bare bottom and so just about all of the water will pass through the UV-sterilizer. There's a world of difference between that kind of environment and a reef tank. Still, I wouldn't say that they shouldn't be used in a reef-tank situation...just don't rely too much on it and don't be shocked if a little ich should show up while you're running one.