Fishkeeping - UV or not

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- - UV or not (http://www.fishkeepingbanter.com/showthread.php?t=63840)

Because it usually only helps at best. Most people
under size them and run the water through them too
fast, and it hurts the good stuff as well as the
bad. In the reef tank, you want what plankton and
pods that there are. And fish will usually get over
the ich on their own if their immune system is good.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets

RubenD wrote on 3/5/2007 7:10 PM:
And even though experience has shown that UV does
kill some of the ich, it is mostly observed as an
item not normally desired for the reef tank.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets

Why not? I'm curious, I just got one, =)

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message nk.net...
Because it usually only helps at best.

Do you know ANY scientific evidence for any UV lamp
helping with marine ich?

I am not talking about things George was talking about...
What I am looking for is REAL scientific method proving
UV lamps work to help avoid ich...

Most people under size them and run the water through
them too fast,

Not only that... due to the nature of the process, water
to be sterilized properly in a UV lamp has to be filtered!
Every solid particle in the water passing through the lamp is
casting a "shadow of survival" to the organism in the shadow.
So to use lamp properly you would have to filter the tank
water using 30-35 micron filter... Who's doing this?

If you read some scientific documents about UV sterilization
of water you will know they talk usually about a standard long,
40W mercury UV tube in a 3" diameter lamp and water
passing at the speed about 500 gph or less. This kind of setup
delivers dosage of about 18,000 mW-sec/cm2. In order to increase
this dosage you need to lower the water flow. For example, 250 gph
flow will in above mentioned lamp would be exposed to the almost
double dosage of 34,000 mW-sec/cm2.

This dosage is enough to kill bacteria, yeast, some mold
spores, viruses and microalgae. And some aquarium grade lamps
achive this effect with unicellular algea. To kill protozoa (like a well known
from school "Paramecium" or our ich-causing "Cryptocaryon irritans")
you would have to increase the dosage to the range of
200,000 mW-sec/cm2 !!!!! This would mean that if you had 3"
diameter lab-grade UV lamp with a 40W mercury tube you could
give it maximum water flow of 40 gph... How about that!

And this is discussion for a lab-grade UV sterilizer lamp...
Aquarium grade lamps have MUCH SMALLER diameter
of the reaction chamber and are drastically less efficient.

George mentioned before his lamp equipped with a 8W tube
and unknown chamber lenght/diameter. Did not provide us
with any info about water flow rate through his UV lamp...
We can only guess that such a lamp would not work good in
killing ciliates - they just pass through the lamp UNHARMED.
So what he saw was just placebo effect = wishful thinking!

and it hurts the good stuff as well as the
bad. In the reef tank, you want what plankton and
pods that there are.

They usually do not kill anything, good or bad... :-)
In the best case they can help with unicellular algae
or bacteria, but these are important part of the corals diet
in any reef tank, so I am not sure why would like to kill them.

And fish will usually get over
the ich on their own if their immune system is good.

Or with a help of natural cleaners like gobies or shrimps.
Instead of buying a UV lamp for a reef tank to prevent ich
you would do much better buying some cleaner shrimps.
They look pretty, very interesting animals to observe
and they do clean parasites off the fish effectivelly.

"nntp.nildram.co.uk" wrote in message
...
i do have a problem with green algae but i have hermit crabs and turbo
snails along with a yellow tang. I've been thinking of adding a UV
sterilizer to my system but would this starve the snails and crabs.
The tang is ok for other foods but the little hemits and snails seem to
have no other source of food.

Robin

not a fan of UV
but imagine your snails would still find algae or left over food to eat
population may just change a bit in response to food level

"RubenD" wrote in message ...
And even though experience has shown that UV does
kill some of the ich, it is mostly observed as an
item not normally desired for the reef tank.

Why not? I'm curious, I just got one, =)

My advice would be return it to the store unopened for a refund :-)
UV lamps have no place in reef tanks.

Yea, 8 watts is quite lame in UV strength.I had not
noticed the 8 watts part.

As far as scientific studies, there probably are
some out there. Whether they would meet your
criteria, or not I don't know :-)Even Scientist do
some pretty lame studies.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message nk.net...
Yea, 8 watts is quite lame in UV strength.I had not
noticed the 8 watts part.

I hoped you say something like that eventually... :-)

As far as scientific studies, there probably are
some out there. Whether they would meet your
criteria, or not I don't know :-)Even Scientist do
some pretty lame studies.

I am not that strict - basic stuff is good enough for me :-)
But it has to at least resemble scientific aproach...

"Redbrick" wrote in message et...
Hmm...I've been following this thread... Your argument is solid
but difficult to swallow. Experience is simply just that...people
will pay a lot of money for it unfortunately.

People are just people... :-)
Everybody makes mistakes... including me :-)))

It is true that most people that use UV sterilizers
run water through too fast. And most people that
purchase a UV, purchase one that is too small for
what they are wanting it to do.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets

I used to use one but haven't for a couple of years. I'm thinking about it
again. I have a 210 gallon reef . My primary interest is killing stray
pathogens. I'm thinking 40 watts and maybe 200 gallon/hour?

Bob

"Bob" wrote in message ...
I used to use one but haven't for a couple of years. I'm thinking about
it again. I have a 210 gallon reef . My primary interest is killing stray
pathogens. I'm thinking 40 watts and maybe 200 gallon/hour?

What "stray pathogens" you have on your mind?
This water flow is good enough to kill bacteria, algae
but to kill cilliates/prothozoans you need to slow down
to about 40 gph or even less for worms/crustaceans...