UVUVUVUVUV..... is it effective?

[iceemn360]

I have a small 9watt turbo twist UV that was reccomended to me for controlling algae blooms and parasites like Ich. I currently have it on a qt tank for my royal gramma but It doesn't seem to be killing any of the ich. IS there a certain flow rate that provides ideal dwell time for killing this nasty protist ?????

 

[mwaraxa]

There has been a huge debate on that before on whether UV really kills ick or not. I don't know either way but i do remember that someone eventually brought up the point that in order for the UV to kill ick you would have to expose it to the uv WAY longer than you would probably want to with a return pump. You wouldn't get the GPH to maintain the tank right if you ran it slow enough to really do anything to ick. Did that make sense cause i think i confused myself. hehe. I wouldn't think it hurts to run it though but why don't you try doing some hypo salinity action at the same time to really get rid of it?

 

[who dey]

i run an 8 watt. my fish thank me for it!!:jumping:

 

[who dey]

mwaraxa,
they can be set up to hang on the back. i run with a maxijet1200 for slow flow through it.

 

[mwaraxa]

So then you have a seperate pump in your tank to run through the uv?

 

[who dey]

yup

 

[mwaraxa]

What i've gotten out of posts that have talked about exposure time. They were saying that you'd have to have that water exposed to the uv for almost seconds for it to really even kill anything. In terms of actual Ick parasite. I could be way off but thats what i remember.

 

[mwaraxa]

When i got my first UV it also came with a pump. I didn't like the idea of another pump in my tank or all the extra hoses. So i then decided to just pass the water from the Wet/dry through the uv and into the tank. No extra hoses.

 

[who dey]

i'm a fan: i bought it, my ich went away. I go by results! i don't think anyone really knows what happens when a parasite enters the light. do you know anyone who has ever been in one of those bright tubes?? lol

IMO you either believe in it or you don't

 

[fishnerd]

I was the one who posted about dwell time for parasites.
The UV flow rate needed to kill protozoans is impractical for use in a home aquarium. UVs are great for algae and bacteria, but the slow flow required to kill ich is so slow, that the parasites are reproducing faster than they are being killed.
Depending on sources cited, C. irritans (marine ick) requires a "zap" of 125,000 to 128,000 microwatts per second, per sq. centimeter. The "zap" to kill most bacteria and algae is less than 1/10 of that. If your UV is rated for 250gph, you would need to drop it to less than 25gph to kill ick.
Every time I post something like this, someone says I am wrong. All I ask is that they show me evidence contradicting what I have posted. No one has ever been able to do so.
IMO, properly sized ozone units, with contollers, are a much better bet than UV sterilizer.
Oh yeah, Call or email a UV manufacturer (not dealer) and ask what flow is needed to kill marine ich with one of their sterilizers. Their answer might surprise you.

 

[who dey]

can't argue w/that, but i'll still run one