Paging Beth.. UV Flow recommendation?

[clarksz06]

Beth- I have a customer that has a 340 fish only tank. He has a 40 watt Gamma UV sterilizer on the tank. Recently the fish have gotten ich. I looked over the setup tonight and found that the bulb (which is only a few months old) has failed. So I'm ordering him a new one first thing monday. But I would like to know what would be the most optimal flow though would be to kill parisites and still move as much water as possible.
Some sites recommend a Rio 1400? Right now he has 900 gph of flow going though though the sterilizer, which I think is to much.
Thanks for the help.
Clark

 

[beth]

Clarks, UV is somewhat effective to "prevent" ich, it is not too effective to "cure" ich once you have it.
You need to look at the recommended flow rates provided by the manufacture [to prevent serious damage to unit] and then choose the lowest flow rated. The UV, to operate for parasitie managment, should not be a primary souce for flow in the tank. If it is in the tank you are working with, then you can throw in some PHs to compensate for needing to reduce flow on the UV.
If you have "spare" UVs, you can also hit the tank with multiple units. This will just about kill any bacteria/parasites that pass in water column. UVs will work much better in BB tanks then on tanks with a substrate, since part of the ich lifecycle includes attaching to substrate. If you have substrate in the tank, you can put some PHs on the bottom of the tank to try and prevent some ich from landing on the sand [thus inhibiting the lifecycle].

 

[clarksz06]

"put PHs on the bottom of the tank" what do you mean by PHs?
Thanks for the info. I did not know about part of ich's lifecycle lives in the substrate.

 

[beth]

PH means powerhead. Of course, you can't blow your sand all over the place, but if you can get as much circulation as possible going, then it will be less likely that ich will land on substrate. [Substrate can also be glass or even rock, but with ich sand is a great "nest" for ich.