cdc;4218585; said:
It was only to help with health of the fish so I did not think it needed to have anymore flow and it would kill any bacteria in the tank even if it only cycled the tank every hour and a half.
I am unsure about the quality of the unit too.
Again, I have no experience with that brand so I can't comment directly on it's quality.
To help analyze the 'health benefits' a little...
It's quite rare to get a "bad bacteria" in a tank unless you have the habit of allowing excessive food or dead fish sit and rot in the tank/filter. Keep in mind anything that gets in your tank has to come from somewhere. So that "bad bacteria" would have to be floating around your house in order to make itself at home in the tank.
The primary 'health benefit" UV lights offer is that they kill parasites. But they only kill parasites when there is a slow enough flow rate through the UV unit that allows a long enough dwell time to actually kill/sterilize the parasite.
The more complex the organizm the more resistant to UV it will be. Also the thicker the 'skin' of the organism the more resistant it will be. Algae will be killed very easily. Bacteria is slightly more resistant, but as a one celled organism it's still kiolled very easily. Then you have the forms of bacteria that are "thick skinned". There is a pretty big jump to parasites which are (in comparison to bacteria) very complex organisms, many of which have (compared to bacteria) very thick "skin"...
So putting all that mumbo jumbo into practical aplication... Based on ample first hand experience I strongly suggest 10 gph per 1W of UV strength (130 gph for this 13W light) to be effective against parasites as well as all other benefits a UV has to offer.
In my opinion using a UV light in an inhome aquarium at higher flow rates is useless. If you have an outdoor pond with green water issues, that is a different story and high flow rates through UV lights are beneficial for this issue.
