I will preface this with:
This was my experience. I have heard mixed reviews with UV sterilizers and I’m not going to “recommend” that you either use or don’t use but this is what I saw.
I have a 10gal IM nuvo, set up completely dry 8 months ago. This is my second rock nem breeding tank, first was done with all “live” things and never saw a day of dinos. AI prime HD lighting at approximately 40% blue tones, 15% red green white (tapering down to zero). 5 rock nems, a sapphire damsel, 10 astraea. Lights on (with ramping) approximately 10 hours. I don’t track alk, cal, mag, or ph as I do water changes weekly (2gallons) and use regular Red Sea salt (not pro). Nitrates (before dosing) 0, phos (before dosing) 0 ppb. Ammonia 0 (just in case you’re wondering lol)
Around month 5 I noticed the coralline, pods, all the good things, plus dinos. I tried the following, to no avail:
1) add pods and dose phyto-all this did was give me more pods lol
2) raise nitrates to 5 and phos to 80 ppb-I’m probably going to keep this as my new normal. Can’t keep nutrients to save my life.
3) let the tank get “dirty”-a month with no water change, no dosing, and feed like crazy. All this did was run my anxiety up the wall
4) stir up the sand and do a 2 day blackout. This just irritated the fish and coral, next day dinos were back.
After all this, I was ready to try the off the wall things like removing sand, raising ph, anything that remotely worked for others.
I settled on the least invasive: a small UV filter made for the nuvo 10 (see pictures below).
Knowing that the UV only damages the dna (hence stops replication) of things in the water column that passes through it, I knew I would need to blow all the junk off the sand, rocks, etc.
Day 1: put the filter on about 3 hours before lights out and fed the fish. About an hour after lights out I blew down the tank (it was crazy how much snail poop there was) and made a mental note to buy hermit crabs.
Day 2: got home after lights had been on for about 6 hours peak. Notice about a 50% reduction of stringy dinos but it looked promising. After feeding and lights out, blew down the tank again. Noticed a TON of white death-strings. Also had to keep watch that my nems didn’t try to eat them . Cringed that I couldn’t equip my filter sock.
Day 3: 6 hours of in peak lighting, no trace of dinos whatsoever in the tank. Lots of death strings but not as much as day 2. Nitrates: 10, phos 30 ppb. I had stopped dosing so it sorta makes sense.
Day 4 (current): again, no dinos and I’m flabbergasted that this actually worked. I heard so many negative reviews about UV but it seems to have really worked with my tank.
If you have specific questions or want to know more, feel free to reply. I wish I would have taken before shots but mine were all on the sand and bottom layers of rocks.
This was my experience. I have heard mixed reviews with UV sterilizers and I’m not going to “recommend” that you either use or don’t use but this is what I saw.
I have a 10gal IM nuvo, set up completely dry 8 months ago. This is my second rock nem breeding tank, first was done with all “live” things and never saw a day of dinos. AI prime HD lighting at approximately 40% blue tones, 15% red green white (tapering down to zero). 5 rock nems, a sapphire damsel, 10 astraea. Lights on (with ramping) approximately 10 hours. I don’t track alk, cal, mag, or ph as I do water changes weekly (2gallons) and use regular Red Sea salt (not pro). Nitrates (before dosing) 0, phos (before dosing) 0 ppb. Ammonia 0 (just in case you’re wondering lol)
Around month 5 I noticed the coralline, pods, all the good things, plus dinos. I tried the following, to no avail:
1) add pods and dose phyto-all this did was give me more pods lol
2) raise nitrates to 5 and phos to 80 ppb-I’m probably going to keep this as my new normal. Can’t keep nutrients to save my life.
3) let the tank get “dirty”-a month with no water change, no dosing, and feed like crazy. All this did was run my anxiety up the wall
4) stir up the sand and do a 2 day blackout. This just irritated the fish and coral, next day dinos were back.
After all this, I was ready to try the off the wall things like removing sand, raising ph, anything that remotely worked for others.
I settled on the least invasive: a small UV filter made for the nuvo 10 (see pictures below).
Knowing that the UV only damages the dna (hence stops replication) of things in the water column that passes through it, I knew I would need to blow all the junk off the sand, rocks, etc.
Day 1: put the filter on about 3 hours before lights out and fed the fish. About an hour after lights out I blew down the tank (it was crazy how much snail poop there was) and made a mental note to buy hermit crabs.
Day 2: got home after lights had been on for about 6 hours peak. Notice about a 50% reduction of stringy dinos but it looked promising. After feeding and lights out, blew down the tank again. Noticed a TON of white death-strings. Also had to keep watch that my nems didn’t try to eat them . Cringed that I couldn’t equip my filter sock.
Day 3: 6 hours of in peak lighting, no trace of dinos whatsoever in the tank. Lots of death strings but not as much as day 2. Nitrates: 10, phos 30 ppb. I had stopped dosing so it sorta makes sense.
Day 4 (current): again, no dinos and I’m flabbergasted that this actually worked. I heard so many negative reviews about UV but it seems to have really worked with my tank.
If you have specific questions or want to know more, feel free to reply. I wish I would have taken before shots but mine were all on the sand and bottom layers of rocks.
