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Uv sterilizer help


Myvirtue

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Well im having another small ich outbreak. I bought a trigger and powder brown from river city. I have one cleaner wrasse that only comes out when its time to eat lol and 1 cleaner wrasse that is helping. I have several tangs in my tank. Hydro referred me to a site that i had planned on buying from but i cant seem to get in contact with them. So.. this is where i need your help. since im on a budget atm (wife says) and i have alot of credit through marine depot, which UV would u buy and what size and what kinda of pump? I have a 120gallon wide. (4footer) with a 50gallon sump/fug. I was thinking if i did buy a UV i could possibly avoid buying another pump and run it through my reactor i bought from bulk reef supply that i run carbon in... I dont plan on atm to run this all the time. just when i see any signs of ich on my tangs. I plan on making a order through marine depot today or tomorrow since i need salt aswell.

thanks Jerrad.

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I really don't think that a UV will help your issue.. I think it may be more of a band-aid for your problem. Stress is the main cause of Ick. Something is stressing your fish out.. weather it be the types of fish you have in the tank together, water quality, where the tank is in your home in relation to what is out side the tank, kids banging on the glass... something is stressing your fish.

I did a lot of research on UV sterilization and what I found is that they can be more harm than good by killing off the good bacteria in your tank that it needs to survive.. thus creating a larger problem. I'm not saying that everyone has the same results, but IMO if you can go without one, your tank health will be better.

On the opposite side, they do kill off the bad bacteria as well.. but if you maintain your tank and are careful about what you put in the tank, then you can avoid that all together.

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I appreciate that advice. I been looking at the pros and cons for a while now. Im going to buy one. I need help on which one to get and size. Theres several different kinds.

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I want to experiment with one. Just dont want to buy a crappy one.

This may not help a lot but thought I'd throw it in. For my 90g, I bought a turbo twist 9W. I didn't buy it for ich but I was hoping it would at least slow the algae growth on the glass so I could clean it less often. Worthless. I don't know if it's the wattage (it was rated for my tank) or what, but instead of buying a new bulb a year later the thing was put into my random tank-stuff box. That thing made no difference in what I bought it for.

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I want to experiment with one. Just dont want to buy a crappy one.

This may not help a lot but thought I'd throw it in. For my 90g, I bought a turbo twist 9W. I didn't buy it for ich but I was hoping it would at least slow the algae growth on the glass so I could clean it less often. Worthless. I don't know if it's the wattage (it was rated for my tank) or what, but instead of buying a new bulb a year later the thing was put into my random tank-stuff box. That thing made no difference in what I bought it for.

While I am a proponent of UV sterilizers this is one of the things that bugs me about how UV sterilizers are marketed. Bry, even though the packaging say's it's good for up to 120 gal (I think that's what I remember seeing) for what you bought the Turbo Twist for it was TOTALLY unsuited to do, to really make a dent on the benthic green algea or brown algea that grows on glass you would have needed a 25 or 30 watt UV and needed to wipe the glass off at least weekly for it to help, since the algae is growing on the surface of the glass is has to be knocked off and pumped through it. For green water caused by algae blooms the Turbo Twist would have worked fine for a 90 gal. (this is usually only seen in ponds). But to kill Ick it takes about 15 times more UV light to kill than a free floating algae. If you take into account larval parasites are continually hatching out and looking for host fish a turnover rate through the sterilizer IMO needs to be one per hour. The single pass kill rate for UV sterilizers works against having a high turnover rate necessitating larger sterilizers. Taking into account the bulb life, turnover rate and kill rate through the Turbo Twist 9W for controlling Ick I wouldn't expect it to work well on a tank larger than a 20 or 30 gal.

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I want to experiment with one. Just dont want to buy a crappy one.

There are some crappy ones out there. A friend of mine had one that had the housing deteriorated so badly after two years he had to replace it. Of the UV's carried by Marine Depot the only two I've had any experience with are the Ultra life and Lifegaurd Aquatics. Between the two I would go with the Ultra Life's more compact design. Think about where it's going to be installed and ease of accessing the bulb for replacement. The Ultra Life should be installed horizontally the Lifeguard vertically.

I don't see a problem putting it in line between the pump and the carbon reactor but you need to run it continuosly. I prefer to have a small power head and pump water from the tank through the sterilizer then back to the tank. Over the years I've had better success doing it this way. I assuming it is if I'm pumping from the tank I'm getting more larval before they find fish than if I'm pulling from the sump but haven't seen any studies on this.

I personally find the idea of tolerating ick in a tank as acceptable as tolerating fleas on my cats. These are parasites that burrow into the skin and gills and suck blood. I know in many cases ick may be present in a tank without causing apparent problems with fish until they are stressed out but that doesn't mean we should tolerate it. As far as UV's killing beneficial bugs in reef tanks I haven't seen any difference between my tanks that do and my tanks that don't have sterilizers. I do know Leroy Hadlee from GARF is on record that UV sterilizers are beneficial for culturing corals.

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I'm not trying to convince you either way, but if you do decide to buy one I have one of the large turbo flow ones I will sell you for cheap, and it was only used a few months.

Still trying to get rid of my last stuff from my reefkeeping days...

Stephen

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  • 3 weeks later...

well i bought the ultralife 40 watt uv and i just wanted to say..... Thanks!!!!! for everyone that has helped me making the decision to buy one. Im currently running the 40watt with a maxijet 1200. I had a blue tang and blue jaw trigger both covered in ich. The blue tang came from someone elses tank and i knew he was clean but when i introduced him to my tank he started getting ich really bad. I assummed that ich was hosting in my tank. I have bought many tangs and always had the issue with ich. When i bought the uv and hooked it up. I didnt do anything different. I still continuned to feed with garlic and nori as usual. I have been running the UV for almost 2 weeks and i can see a big difference. I had several fish that always had a spot or two on them and it went away. my blue tang and my trigger look clean and no signs of stress or ich. I was very scared about buying one since theres more people against them then for it seems or theres alot of people that havent even used one but still voice there opinion cuz of other peoples results. I just want to say if you hook it up right it works! thanks again everyone!

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Very good to hear. Another member and I both had an ich outbreak about 2 months ago, I had UV and he didn't. Both outbreaks were caused by stress in the tank, in his case some fish were fighting...in mine I had added some new fish. I had 100% success and the other member lost several very nice fish...clown trigger, blue face angelfish, and a I believe the other was a tang. Both of us were feeding garlic and vitamins, it was the UV that made all the difference. Seriously no one should be recommending people to never use UV's, there is absolutely no reason not to run one during an ich outbreak. It makes complete sense and will help your livestock alive and let them recover faster (see above post) If you choose to run one beyond that is debatable, but if you have an algae bloom, parasites, or a fish disease that is spreading a UV can save your a**.

Also bacterial...yes it kills good and bad bacteria but this is only what's in the water column. It doesn't kill the beneficial bacteria that lives on the live rock, in the sand, or in the fuge. It can only kill what is passing through it. If I were seeding a new tank I probably wouldn't use it until I was sure bacteria had colonized on everything inside the tank. Other than that you are only sterilizing the water coulumn.

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