UV Sterilizer (1 Viewer)

[sneezebeetle]

I am adding a UV sterilizer to both of my tanks (60 cube softie tank and a 75 shallow mixed reef tank) and I am curious about preferred practices. For those of you running them, do you run them 24/7 or do you have a preferred schedule i.e. days or nights only?

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Bigfishy]

I run my 24x7


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gregg]

i run mine 24/7 with very low pressure, ya dont want the water rushing past the uv light...slow and easy.

 

[Reefahholic]

sneeze..what brand and size are you gonna slap on the 75?

 

[sneezebeetle]

sneeze..what brand and size are you gonna slap on the 75?

Well, I'm looking at 3 options at the moment although I am certainly open to considering others as well....

-Emperor Aquatics 25w
-Coralife Turbo Twist 18w
-Classic Inline Aqua UV 25w

I'm not sure how I feel about the Coralife brand, but was actually suprised to find it on most of the recommended lists circulating in forums and on the web.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Reefahholic]

The one that rings a bell for me after being on all these forums is the Emperor...

I'd get with Ty and see what he's running before I personally bought anything.

 

[sneezebeetle]

The one that rings a bell for me after being on all these forums is the Emperor...

I'd get with Ty and see what he's running before I personally bought anything.

Great suggestion, maybe @FarmerTy will chime in

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Reefahholic]

He needs too!

 

[steveb]

He and I have the same unless he’s changed to a different brand.

TMC 110 Watt Professional Large Pond/Aquarium UV Sterilizer/Clarifier




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[FarmerTy]

Great suggestion, maybe @FarmerTy will chime in

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

I'm trying to recall my research from a few years back.

If you're just using for clarifying (reducing waterborne algae) almost any sterilizer will do. It doesn't take much to clarify. If you're looking for sterilization, then there is an ideal flow rate and size to look for.

Generally 2-3x turnover an hour (just a recommendation as I haven't ever seen anything published repeating this) and an irradiance level of 320,000 uw/cm2 according to the University of Florida recommendation for killing marine protists (aka ich).

Most of the time, that put the flow around 250-300 gph through the sterilizer.

What was interesting was I found the UV placement much more successful when I ran it with the intake towards the bottom of the display tank behind a rock somewhere and not placed in the sump... Which unfortunately can be a pain to achieve without tubing/piping everywhere and the UV placed above the display. Freshly hatched and actively foraging ich theronts tend to be in the lower levels of the water column so it makes sense for placement of the UV intake water.

I would skip the coralife. I'm unaware if they use UV resistant plastic or publish their irradiance levels.

@steveb I'm still using the TMC unit but may be upgrading this year to the Pentair (emperor) 150 unit with my increased water volume.

 

[sneezebeetle]

Talk about those gold nuggets of information! I had never considered placement of the sterilizer to be of significance before...guess I will be re-thinking my placement! My main purpose was for Algae...but because of Newtons Law, I'm thinking I see a plumbing project in the near future!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[PorpoiseHork]

I run mine 24/7 but If you dose live phyto then you would want to run the UV at night after the main lights shut off or not run UV for at least 4 hours after dosing the live phyto.

 

[FarmerTy]

I run mine 24/7 but If you dose live phyto then you would want to run the UV at night after the main lights shut off or not run UV for at least 4 hours after dosing the live phyto.

I'm with porpoisehork, I run mine 24/7.

 

[gregg]

What was interesting was I found the UV placement much more successful when I ran it with the intake towards the bottom of the display tank behind a rock somewhere and not placed in the sump.

Ty, how do you know it was more successful? What differences did you see?

 

[FarmerTy]

Ty, how do you know it was more successful? What differences did you see?

I had an actual test specimen, a powder blue tang. It wasnt the intent but I had placed him in my sump for a bit until I could sort how to add him into the system without WW3 starting with the other tangs. He lived in the sump ich free for 2-3 months where the UV was plumbed. When I was ready to add him, I moved him to the display. He instantly broke out in ich... Got so bad that I moved him back into the sump and he was ich free again. Moved him into the display again and covered in ich again.

Later research clued me in that they have no ich resistance so if you have some, they can't fight it off like most fish do.

So, knowing that, I came to the conclusion that the UV alone in the sump gave it an environment that was ich free but it being plumbed in the sump did little for the display population of ich. When I moved the UV to the display, i was able to keep an achilles and powder blue (both with no ich resistance) in the tank together.

It all came together when I read a Japanese research article discussing location of ich theronts after initial release and prior to attachment and most were found in the lower columns of water... Just made sense to me to plumb my intake where the theronts were hatching and attaching to the fish. I would imagine very little of them actually get swept over the overflows at the top of our tank to be eliminated by a UV in the sump.

Just my thoughts and conclusions over the years. I believe AquaUV even mentions this as an ideal method to plumb the UV... Within the display and not sump.

 

[d2mini]

I run an AquaUV Classic and use the guide on their website for flow rate in a reef tank so I can run it 24/7.
It's plumbed in-line so all my return goes through the UV.

 

[FarmerTy]

I run an AquaUV Classic and use the guide on their website for flow rate in a reef tank so I can run it 24/7.
It's plumbed in-line so all my return goes through the UV.

AquaUV's ratings are more conservative than Emperor and definitely more conservative than the University of Florida research. From memory, Emperor's recommendations is 2x higher than AquaUV killing marine protists and the University of Florida is 4-5x higher.

Take this all with a grain of salt however as its really all a fuzzy science to me as the number from the University of Florida research is an extrapolated number from their research with freshwater ich... Which is not even the same thing.

For ich maintenance, I would be hesitant to recommend plumbing with the return as the flow rate is too fast to allow enough contact time to kill ich. You want somewhere around 200-300 gph to kill ich in most setups and return flow in most systems exceeds that easily. It probably is sufficient for clarification though for killing algae spores as that takes very little contact time.

 

[steveb]

How are you plumbing it into the bottom portion of the tank?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[FarmerTy]

How are you plumbing it into the bottom portion of the tank?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

My old tank I literally threw a pump behind a rock and ran PVC along the overflow up and out to pump water to the UV mounted above the tank.

In the new tank, I reused the old overflow holes on the bottom glass and repurposed them as a closed loop for my UV sterilizer.

Intake and effluent are at the bottom of the tank. I thought it was a good way to use the existing holes instead of just covering them up.

 

[Reefahholic]

I'm trying to recall my research from a few years back.

If you're just using for clarifying (reducing waterborne algae) almost any sterilizer will do. It doesn't take much to clarify. If you're looking for sterilization, then there is an ideal flow rate and size to look for.

Generally 2-3x turnover an hour (just a recommendation as I haven't ever seen anything published repeating this) and an irradiance level of 320,000 uw/cm2 according to the University of Florida recommendation for killing marine protists (aka ich).

Most of the time, that put the flow around 250-300 gph through the sterilizer.

What was interesting was I found the UV placement much more successful when I ran it with the intake towards the bottom of the display tank behind a rock somewhere and not placed in the sump... Which unfortunately can be a pain to achieve without tubing/piping everywhere and the UV placed above the display. Freshly hatched and actively foraging ich theronts tend to be in the lower levels of the water column so it makes sense for placement of the UV intake water.

I would skip the coralife. I'm unaware if they use UV resistant plastic or publish their irradiance levels.

@steveb I'm still using the TMC unit but may be upgrading this year to the Pentair (emperor) 150 unit with my increased water volume.

That makes sense Ty. There would definitely be more theronts in the display rather than down in the sump.

I’ve heard some good things about Emperor.