UV sterilizers are not effective and we should all stop using them, Right?

[Daniel76]

@Daniel76, your original premise is that UV sterilizers reduce bacteria by 98% but do not affect mortality. Now I'm not sure what you're arguing--is it that UV sterilizers kill 98% of bacteria and no algae (e.g. dinos)? Seems like you're throwing your hands up in the air to say we know nothing. In fact, there are many peer-reviewed studies that show the effects of UV light on all sorts of life including bacteria and algae (see links). So since we have peer-reviewed studies that 270nm light kills algae, we have UV sterilizers that produce 270nm light, and we have people who claim that using UV light sterilizers eliminates their algae problem, it seems like we can logically conclude that UV sterilizers reduce algae.

Great postS, but I'm not sure it states what it's positive effect is in the aquarium hobby?

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

Not sure what the point of this argument really is? Trying to claim there's no useful evidence that UV sterilizers are useful? Trying to entice someone else to do a scientific based study? Trolling to get people that have had success with UV sterilizers worked up?

A peer reviewed paper isn't required to show something can be a useful tool. Is there a peer reviewed article that says a hammer is useful for driving nails? Would you need to find one to believe it? With so many people having sucesses with UV, it should be clear to most that UV is a tool which can be used to aid in the reduction of certain dino strains, and film algae. The article that was linked had nothing to do with dinos or algae, rather fish mortality. I haven't seen anyone post anything in a long time about using a UV to keep fish healthy, so the linked article isn't really relevant.

OP, just curious if you think UV is a useful tool for home aquaria or not. Not if you think there is true reliable evidence to support that UV is useful, just your own personal gut feeling about them. Personally, I think they can be if applied correctly and used for a few specific purposes.

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

Great postS, but I'm not sure it states what it's positive effect is in the aquarium hobby?

"...reduce algae"

 

[Gw2kpro]

"my standard for differentiating fact from conjecture is a little different to yours and no amount of additional conjecture will change my mind" isn't a bad thing.

I don't believe anyone up here has said that you should run UV in your system.

On the other hand, you are up here telling people to stop using UV in their systems, even people who have had great success running UV.

I don't believe UV is a cure-all for anything (realistically, nothing in this hobby is), but know without a doubt that it's extremely effective in treating some kinds of dinoflagellates.

 

[jurgenph]

 

[DirtMcGurt]

This thread title was carefully worded.

But just for those people looking for real experience, I'll add mine. After many other methods tried... a UV cleared up the dinos in my tank. Its offline now but ready to go if the dinos ever come back.

 

[Daniel76]

Not sure what the point of this argument really is? Trying to claim there's no useful evidence that UV sterilizers are useful? Trying to entice someone else to do a scientific based study? Trolling to get people that have had success with UV sterilizers worked up?

A peer reviewed paper isn't required to show something can be a useful tool. Is there a peer reviewed article that says a hammer is useful for driving nails? Would you need to find one to believe it? With so many people having sucesses with UV, it should be clear to most that UV is a tool which can be used to aid in the reduction of certain dino strains, and film algae. The article that was linked had nothing to do with dinos or algae, rather fish mortality. I haven't seen anyone post anything in a long time about using a UV to keep fish healthy, so the linked article isn't really relevant.

OP, just curious if you think UV is a useful tool for home aquaria or not. Not if you think there is true reliable evidence to support that UV is useful, just your own personal gut feeling about them. Personally, I think they can be if applied correctly and used for a few specific purposes.

My belief is that on the scale of "this thing is useful, use it in the hobby" to "not useful" this leans towards not useful.
I think a case in point is your wording on "I haven't seen anyone post anything in a long time about using a UV to keep fish healthy"
Shouldn't fish health be about the ONLY consideration of why this should be used?
What if a new product came out and it headline on the PR release was "We are in no way claiming this will improve the health of your fish" wouldn't that be something to think about?

I'm mean even BRSTV say that they believe UV is a way to "protect your fish from common fish disease and parasites"

And to be quite open, I didn't have a 'point' to start with, but I noticed that the most conversation occurs on here when a title is completely one sided and genuinely thought that I'd see a balance of pro and con for using them. Again, to be open, I'm now doubting my thought process and research and I'll keep looking into it.

But the thing this has morphed into is that if I look up BRSTV, Marine Depot, and this forum, and the consistency just isn't there.

From your username, I assume you are a professional in the industry or at least have done this for years longer than me, and you said no one is claiming that UV is used to keep fish healthy!!!!! So now I'm back to being confused again.

 

[ca1ore]

Plenty of anecdotal stories saying they are great, but limited scientific articles.

You just described the entre reefing hobby …...

 

[ca1ore]

UV sterilizers do two things - one that can be directly observed, a second that is mostly inferred/assumed. If you have water cloudiness, either as a consequence of algae or bacteria, an UV will clear this up very effectively. We might judge this to be purely aesthetic as the impact on animal health is likely to be minimal; but bacteria blooms, though rare, can have a devastating affect on O2 levels so a tool like the UV may indirectly save animals. The impact on parasites is less clear. While it is conceivable that a properly sized UV will reduce parasite 'pressure' akin to the role of dilution in the open ocean, this is mostly conjecture as I have not seen any data on it one way or the other.

 

[hart24601]

UV sterilizers do two things - one that can be directly observed, a second that is mostly inferred/assumed. If you have water cloudiness, either as a consequence of algae or bacteria, an UV will clear this up very effectively. We might judge this to be purely aesthetic as the impact on animal health is likely to be minimal; but bacteria blooms, though rare, can have a devastating affect on O2 levels so a tool like the UV may indirectly save animals. The impact on parasites is less clear. While it is conceivable that a properly sized UV will reduce parasite 'pressure' akin to the role of dilution in the open ocean, this is mostly conjecture as I have not seen any data on it one way or the other.

I would add to that 1st part since UV has been used in so many tanks to control dinoflagellates the impact on animal health, particularly coral but in some instances fish as well, is not minimal but dramatic improvement as they would otherwise be killed by the dinoflagellates in many cases.

 

[Daniel76]

UV sterilizers do two things - one that can be directly observed, a second that is mostly inferred/assumed. If you have water cloudiness, either as a consequence of algae or bacteria, an UV will clear this up very effectively. We might judge this to be purely aesthetic as the impact on animal health is likely to be minimal; but bacteria blooms, though rare, can have a devastating affect on O2 levels so a tool like the UV may indirectly save animals. The impact on parasites is less clear. While it is conceivable that a properly sized UV will reduce parasite 'pressure' akin to the role of dilution in the open ocean, this is mostly conjecture as I have not seen any data on it one way or the other.

Wow, thank you.

 

[CuzzA]

My belief is that on the scale of "this thing is useful, use it in the hobby" to "not useful" this leans towards not useful.
I think a case in point is your wording on "I haven't seen anyone post anything in a long time about using a UV to keep fish healthy"
Shouldn't fish health be about the ONLY consideration of why this should be used?
What if a new product came out and it headline on the PR release was "We are in no way claiming this will improve the health of your fish" wouldn't that be something to think about?

I'm mean even BRSTV say that they believe UV is a way to "protect your fish from common fish disease and parasites"

And to be quite open, I didn't have a 'point' to start with, but I noticed that the most conversation occurs on here when a title is completely one sided and genuinely thought that I'd see a balance of pro and con for using them. Again, to be open, I'm now doubting my thought process and research and I'll keep looking into it.

But the thing this has morphed into is that if I look up BRSTV, Marine Depot, and this forum, and the consistency just isn't there.

From your username, I assume you are a professional in the industry or at least have done this for years longer than me, and you said no one is claiming that UV is used to keep fish healthy!!!!! So now I'm back to being confused again.

You are fixated on fish health, we are all managing reefs. A big difference. I haven't heard anyone say a UV eliminates ich or velvet, but they do in fact cure other reef nuisances which can effect both fish and coral. Dinos can kill coral and bacteria blooms can kill fish. It is well established UV can eliminate both.

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

My belief is that on the scale of "this thing is useful, use it in the hobby" to "not useful" this leans towards not useful.
I think a case in point is your wording on "I haven't seen anyone post anything in a long time about using a UV to keep fish healthy"
Shouldn't fish health be about the ONLY consideration of why this should be used?
What if a new product came out and it headline on the PR release was "We are in no way claiming this will improve the health of your fish" wouldn't that be something to think about?

I'm mean even BRSTV say that they believe UV is a way to "protect your fish from common fish disease and parasites"

And to be quite open, I didn't have a 'point' to start with, but I noticed that the most conversation occurs on here when a title is completely one sided and genuinely thought that I'd see a balance of pro and con for using them. Again, to be open, I'm now doubting my thought process and research and I'll keep looking into it.

But the thing this has morphed into is that if I look up BRSTV, Marine Depot, and this forum, and the consistency just isn't there.

From your username, I assume you are a professional in the industry or at least have done this for years longer than me, and you said no one is claiming that UV is used to keep fish healthy!!!!! So now I'm back to being confused again.

Seemingly, the most common use of UV sterilizers, at least the most recent popular use based on frequency of posts and threads on R2R and many of the other reefing social platforms is to use them to reduce the number of ostreopsis dinos, or to reduce film algae to reduce frequency of glass cleanings. It does not frequently get brought up as an option to keep your fish healthy. The size of UV needed to sterilize the protazoa that affect fish would be very large and unreasonable for most hobbyists to use. For fish, a proper QT setup and

There are many concerns from hobbyists. Fish health, coral health, clean rocks and sand, less frequent maintenance like cleaning the glass...etc. UV applied correctly has shown to be a strong tool to aid in the reduction of certain pest algae, dino, and bacteria strains which does have enough merit for many hobbyists to invest in a UV. The idea that adding a UV could reduce a pest such as dino to the level that it is no longer a pest is very appealing after spending months trying other methods. For fish health UV, unfortunately, is not the most useful tool.

 

[Daniel76]

Maybe it's time for a new UV sterilizer poll.
This one is from Jan 2018.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Maybe it's time for a new UV sterilizer poll.
This one is from Jan 2018.

At the time of that poll, it was becoming more and more evident that UV benefits a plagued reef. Maybe it is time for a new poll but it would still be anecdotal and slightly meaningless unless trends are your thing.

Kind of reminds me when fluconazole and vibrant came around. Reefers struggled with different types of algae, then all of a sudden we didn't. Same goes for high and low nutrients in a aquarium vs. the ocean.

 

[Scott Weinrich]

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/6/m006p295.pdf

Here you go.

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/6/m006p295.pdf

Here you go.

Did you even read that article? There is zero empirical data generated in that research. It's just a cursory effort at modeling a UV disinfection in a closed system. In the discussion, there is reference to other studies, but I am pretty safe in assuming you never bothered to go and actually look at the primary source of the research. Otherwise, you might recognize that aquaculture of sea bream is quite different than maintaining a marine aquarium. Furthermore, it seems pretty likely that mortality of fish in the 1970's (in the referenced studies) is not entirely due to infectious disease.

 

[Scott Weinrich]

FYI, bacterial inactivation is a pretty poor metric of performance in a marine aquarium. It is quite conceivable that those studies had a dose rate sufficient to eliminated >98% of bacteria, but inadequate to inactivate more relevant pathogens such as Cryptocaryon. As such, those studies mentioned in that paper may not have even been using UV sterilizers effectively.

 

[CuzzA]

Tonight I upped my dose of UV a smidgen, just to stick it to bacteria, algae and any potential dino a little harder. Thanks for the thread.

 

[Popkorn0407]

I run a UV and have cristal clear water, thats all i want from my UV to do and thats where is performe best and give me result.

 

[Back where it all began]

Some observations are as good as proof. Cause and effect is a major player. My uv has rid my tank of dinos and everything looks better. Numerical proof-no. Observational proof-yes.