UV Sterilzers in the SH tank?

[Devaji]

what are tour thoughts on the use of UV in the SH tank? is it a worth while investment? does it help with the Bactria problems SH are prone to?

thinking about adding a turbo twist to the build goodies. just not sure its worth the investment?
my filtration withh be oversized skimmer ,ATS, macro algae and possibly filter socks changed every 3 days with a bag of high end carbon in it.

thoughts?

 

[tdileo]

What's an SH tank? Never heard of that before

 

[Devaji]

What's an SH tank? Never heard of that before

Seahorses

 

[tdileo]

Ah okay. I don't have seahorse experience but I think a UV sterilizier would be good and bad. I would assume any copepods that get passed through would be killed.
Like I said I don't really know much about seahorses but I believe I read they only eat copepods unless you train them to eat other food

 

[Devaji]

anyone here run a UV on there tank?

 

[brandon429]

it is one million percent ideal to run a uv on a seahorse tank for the reasons mentioned. The way we can assess if burned items in the water are making a difference, is to consider how much support they'd give if we stopped feeding. since the animals would die in the predicted succession if we simply stopped feeding, its caused me to see planktors as simply ideals and never breakpoints. Its not that uv is required to be successful, its that we have collected massive tank invasion cure threads and we wield UV like thor wields a hammer. reliable, solid cheat. good for all reefs as a total unrequired awesome cheat. for the one tank reading whose live phyto culture is their food base, perhaps don't UV.

right now in one of the big dinoflagellate threads kicked up and running UV is doing what it always does, shining. Its not that UV will cure all dino tanks, its that they're among the devices that if ran correctly can attain the same 30% cure rate a handful of other dino approaches can attain. Its part of the legit dino attack mode. The key to uv is oversize it by as large of a margin as you can $ wise and size wise, my own setup was a pond sterilizer meant for ten thousand gallons on a 75 g tank.

of course flow rates matter, but if you purchase the largest you can get then that's boosting a range of effectiveness where ideal flow alone wont be as much impact. the right flow rate on oversized uv/powerhouse.

 

[Devaji]

it is one million percent ideal to run a uv on a seahorse tank for the reasons mentioned. The way we can assess if burned items in the water are making a difference, is to consider how much support they'd give if we stopped feeding. since the animals would die in the predicted succession if we simply stopped feeding, its caused me to see planktors as simply ideals and never breakpoints. Its not that uv is required to be successful, its that we have collected massive tank invasion cure threads and we wield UV like thor wields a hammer. reliable, solid cheat. good for all reefs as a total unrequired awesome cheat. for the one tank reading whose live phyto culture is their food base, perhaps don't UV.

right now in one of the big dinoflagellate threads kicked up and running UV is doing what it always does, shining. Its not that UV will cure all dino tanks, its that they're among the devices that if ran correctly can attain the same 30% cure rate a handful of other dino approaches can attain. Its part of the legit dino attack mode. The key to uv is oversize it by as large of a margin as you can $ wise and size wise, my own setup was a pond sterilizer meant for ten thousand gallons on a 75 g tank.

of course flow rates matter, but if you purchase the largest you can get then that's boosting a range of effectiveness where ideal flow alone wont be as much impact.

that what I was thinking to might be a great idea on a SH tank. and wondering what other SH keepers think about it.
anyone have personal experience with this?

my filtration I think is going to be this. filter sock , over sized skimmer, ATS, LR and wondering if UV would ad any benefit.

 

[Devaji]

oh and what Wattage would one need for a 65 gallons of water volume?

 

[Critterheaven]

I typically run one. For fry tanks without question, for adult usually. I currently have a 15W on about a 90 gallon water system.

 

[brandon429]

for 65 gallons, try to find one that is rated for 400 gallons and buy it if possible after researching posts on it and seeing if the measurements fit your install scheme. To me we don't buy them matched for the tank we use, for the money we go as big as we can afford. mine was for a pond. If you want the specific one for 65 gallons pick an emperor aquatics one rated for that gallonage, costly but good. me personally Id use one rated 4x my gallonage at least. turbo twists are decent for the money, buy one for a 200 gallon tank at minimum

 

[Devaji]

for 65 gallons, try to find one that is rated for 400 gallons and buy it if possible after researching posts on it and seeing if the measurements fit your install scheme. To me we don't buy them matched for the tank we use, for the money we go as big as we can afford. mine was for a pond. If you want the specific one for 65 gallons pick an emperor aquatics one rated for that gallonage, costly but good. me personally Id use one rated 4x my gallonage at least. turbo twists are decent for the money, buy one for a 200 gallon tank at minimum

would this be over kill you think?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/55W-Aquariu...Koi-Clarifier-Pond-Reef-Pump-Filter-/29162880
that and a 200GHP pump might to the trick?

 

[tjdouglas]

For what it's worth, I have used both UV and ozone on my seahorse tanks and have found both to be helpful. My seahorse tank is stocked on the heavier side (seahorses are so addicting!), so I find that using either UV or ozone does help keep up the water quality (but I still also perform weekly water changes). Although I have found both UV and ozone to be helpful, I prefer using ozone (many people using ozone just run it through their skimmer's air intake line) because I find that a UV unit warms the water too much. As Brandon429 points out, you would need a UV unit that is ranked for a much larger system that what you actually have or the UV won't actually be very helpful. But a larger UV unit creates more heat which is usually something you don't want in your seahorse unless maybe you live some place that stays cool year round.

Also, keep in mind that if you go with UV you want to use a fairly slow pump for the unit (not a fast one) because the UV light exposure needs to be long enough to have an impact on the pathogens, etc., in your water. A faster pump will send the water through the UV unit too quickly and won't have ample time to properly treat your water. But running the water slowly through the UV unit does normally cause it to heat up.

And finally, a "straight" UV unit is usually viewed as more effective than the turbo-twist. The water stays in a 4 foot UV "straight" in-line unit longer than in a 2 foot turbo-twist which equals longer UV exposure in the 4foot and more effective water treatment.

Best wishes on whatever you decide!

 

[Devaji]

For what it's worth, I have used both UV and ozone on my seahorse tanks and have found both to be helpful. My seahorse tank is stocked on the heavier side (seahorses are so addicting!), so I find that using either UV or ozone does help keep up the water quality (but I still also perform weekly water changes). Although I have found both UV and ozone to be helpful, I prefer using ozone (many people using ozone just run it through their skimmer's air intake line) because I find that a UV unit warms the water too much. As Brandon429 points out, you would need a UV unit that is ranked for a much larger system that what you actually have or the UV won't actually be very helpful. But a larger UV unit creates more heat which is usually something you don't want in your seahorse unless maybe you live some place that stays cool year round.

Also, keep in mind that if you go with UV you want to use a fairly slow pump for the unit (not a fast one) because the UV light exposure needs to be long enough to have an impact on the pathogens, etc., in your water. A faster pump will send the water through the UV unit too quickly and won't have ample time to properly treat your water. But running the water slowly through the UV unit does normally cause it to heat up.

And finally, a "straight" UV unit is usually viewed as more effective than the turbo-twist. The water stays in a 4 foot UV "straight" in-line unit longer than in a 2 foot turbo-twist which equals longer UV exposure in the 4foot and more effective water treatment.

Best wishes on whatever you decide!

AH thanks for the replay, just what I wanted to hear someone how keeps SH and has experience using UV. yeah I was aware of the need for slow flow to give more contact time in the UV but did not conciser the heat issue, most of the year that will nor be an issue but a few months it might be.

well dang now I have another choice to think about. to be honest I dont know much if anything at all about Ozone guess I have to do some research now.
can you tell me why you run ozone on your SH tank and what you find it does that other filter methods cant.
cheers

 

[Devaji]

Ok after some research Ozone is out...to expensive, possible dangers now back to UV .
anyone else find running one on there tank useful. there kinda $$ so I want to make sure there worth it.
I will prob go with a off brand over sized to get the results.

here is a BRS TV on UV:
just what I thought .to bad the 50w unit they use is $690

 

[vlangel]

I ran a turbo twist on my first seahorse tank and considering that tank was totally under powered (4Xs turnover) I feel the UV helped a lot. Unfortunately it broke when I upgraded but I plan to get another UV. The UV does not have to be as slow to bacteria as it does algae and for me bacteria is the issue. Also I set mine up where it gets the water from the drain chamber and empties in the return chamber bypassing the fuge so that pods are not killed.

 

[brandon429]

we used UV extensively in a beef processing plant bac lab, multi thousand dollar gear. So sensitive that we weren't allowed to touch or change or modify them, had to be third party. They were on the incoming lines to our water/tap system and the measures of aerobic colony counts were notably higher when they were turned off, even with city chlorination. I know this thread is about seahorse-specifics but was just adding Ive done lab testing pre and post UV and its statistically significant against floating bacteria to say the least. 90% effective when tuned approximately, which ranges case to case but for us it was that sharp in controlling waterborne bac

it is so challenging to run a beef processing microbiology lab due to all the boot traffic and varied sources of bac contam, the water we were using to clean surfaces actually had to be clean, the cleaners we were using were't enough lol. one of the ways it mattered was by prepping a spray bottle with contaminated tap or rinsing lab gear pre sterilization one contaminates surroundings

in our seahorse tanks they will reduce bacteria that aren't contributing anything to your system, whats on surfaces is plenty.

Bacteria had to be controlled from every single vector and it was always a big takeaway for me that UV was and is still used in various industries due to measurable benefit.