Do you have a UV sterilizer? If so, do you recommend them

[glb]

I have a 40g breeder softie/LPS tank which has occasional dino/cyano outbreaks. The dinos happened when nutrients zeroed out (which is fixed now) The tank has 6 healthy fish who have never gotten ich or anything else. I practice good husbandry with daily water changes and weekly testing.

If you have a UV sterilizer, what do you use it for primarily? How did you plumb it? Do you have it on all the time? What size is yours related to your tank size?? Was it worth the investment? Would it make sense on my tank? Any help is greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Subsea]

I don’t use in reef tank on a continuous basis. Because I have many tanks, I have a 40 W unit that can be used on any tank. If you are going to use UV, get big.

 

[glb]

I don’t use in reef tank on a continuous basis. Because I have many tanks, I have a 40 W unit that can be used on any tank. If you are going to use UV, get big.

How do you plumb it so you can move it around?

 

[Caseyz]

The video below is probably worth a watch. Can't vouch for all of it, but they do demonstrate a closed loop "hang on" system that can be used with multiple aquariums.

 

[SPR1968]

Provided it’s powerful enough and you have the correct flow rate/ killing power why wouldn’t you have one is the question?

Get the biggest you can fit in your system and run in 24/7.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Get the biggest you can fit in your system and run in 24/7.

+1

 

[flampton]

I recommend but I don’t use it 24/7 as I dose carbon.

 

[KrisReef]

I have a 40g breeder softie/LPS tank which has occasional dino/cyano outbreaks. The dinos happened when nutrients zeroed out (which is fixed now) The tank has 6 healthy fish who have never gotten ich or anything else. I practice good husbandry with daily water changes and weekly testing.

If you have a UV sterilizer, what do you use it for primarily? How did you plumb it? Do you have it on all the time? What size is yours related to your tank size?? Was it worth the investment? Would it make sense on my tank? Any help is greatly appreciated!!!

What are you treating? These are great for water column pests that can be killed with uv radiation.

Radiation, chemo-therapy? What are you treating? Pools and outdoor ponds use these for algae killing. Do you feed algae or have pods in your tank?

They are a great tool, do you need this tool? I don't know. HTH.

 

[Vette67]

Depends on what you are looking to accomplish with it. I wouldn’t recommend one for continual use unless you are fighting a parasite problem. They can also be useful for diatoms. If you have other algae issues, there are better ways to treat it than U.V.

So let us know what problem you are looking to solve. I ran strong UV for over a year to fight an ich problem. Recently the problem was eradicated, so I took my 80 watts of UV offline, and will keep it on standby in case of another outbreak, but will not use it unless necessary. I wouldn’t recommend it just to put it inline for no reason.

 

[piranhaman00]

I run UV on all my tanks 24/7. For a 40B I use a AquaUV 2000+ 15 watt, it’s smaller than classic, works great! I use for water clarity and disease control even though everything is QT. At 130$ cant go wrong

 

[glb]

I’m thinking for diatoms, dinos, algae, etc. Although I’m wondering if I really need one if my water quality is good.

 

[Steve Justis]

I have an oversized UV on my 130.4 water box - its 160 watts, water is crystal clear keeps the water warm, it’s an aqua ultraviolet and works very well as the last stage of my filtration. Bigger the better if you ask me.

 

[Jon Fishman]

I have an oversized UV on my 130.4 water box - its 160 watts, water is crystal clear keeps the water warm, it’s an aqua ultraviolet and works very well as the last stage of my filtration. Bigger the better if you ask me.

I may change mine up. I have 4 Aqua UV running together on a single pump, but set them horizontally not vertically because I read that if the pump dies, you will burn out the bulbs (4 in my case) but I’m doing great with the setup so may try it. Having 4 horizontally is taking up WAY too much room. I’d love to zip-toe them all together

 

[Steve Justis]

I may change mine up. I have 4 Aqua UV running together on a single pump, but set them horizontally not vertically because I read that if the pump dies, you will burn out the bulbs (4 in my case) but I’m doing great with the setup so may try it. Having 4 horizontally is taking up WAY too much room. I’d love to zip-toe them all together

Good tip on the orientation- will program the apex to turn the UV off if the pump stops working.

 

[glb]

I have an oversized UV on my 130.4 water box - its 160 watts, water is crystal clear keeps the water warm, it’s an aqua ultraviolet and works very well as the last stage of my filtration. Bigger the better if you ask me.

Thanks! Good to know that it heats up the tank. I’m in South Florida so my tank runs pretty warm already.

 

[Steve Justis]

Thanks! Good to know that it heats up the tank. I’m in South Florida so my tank runs pretty warm already.

Yeah you might need a chiller, my tanks are staying around 78-80 in my basement here in Virginia.

 

[flampton]

Thanks! Good to know that it heats up the tank. I’m in South Florida so my tank runs pretty warm already.

160W is a ton of UV. If you run a UV it will be a little less T increase than a heater of the same size. 25W UV will be similar to a 25W heater.

And you should size it for what you want it to do. You don’t need to go big just because. For instance I use a 24W green killing machine with 70G system volume to maintain a specific bacterial population amount. So I don’t need the big guns as that is more geared towards parasite control.

 

[Steve Justis]

Yeah mine is for parasite control, that’s exactly the application I wanted. no parasites so far, had it running since I started the tank and before fish were introduced.

 

[glb]

Yeah you might need a chiller, my tanks are staying around 78-80 in my basement here in Virginia.

I have no room for a chiller, lol. I’m thinking I’ll do without the UV sterilizer to keep the tank cool. Thanks!

 

[BurgerFish]

AA Green Killing Machine 24w clear cloudy water in 2 days.