Do i need a UV light?

[kendragon]

If not sized or installed properly it is definitely a waste of money. The UV does not make the water better or eliminate routine tank maintenance. UV does kill small parasites and plant passing through it's path. Larger things like chilodinella and ich require a higher dose. So the unit needs to be sized for the target purpose otherwise you're just fooling yourself.

 

[mzhantsche]

got it.

wait what do you mean sized? Its rated for a 300 gal and 34wat. I have a 150 gal tank. I have it running through the out put on one of my canisters. Does that sound properly instaled and sized?

 

[kendragon]

got it.

wait what do you mean sized? Its rated for a 300 gal and 34wat. I have a 150 gal tank. I have it running through the out put on one of my canisters. Does that sound properly instaled and sized?

Dose is a function of dwell time and average fluence rate in the reactor (mW/cm^2). So what's the effeciency of the lamp? Quartz sleeve dia? Quartz sleeve length? Chamber vol? Flow rate? %T? Without all these info, 34W is meaningless. Rated for 300g for what? Algae, parasite, ich,....? Algae requires 34,000 microwatt seconds. Chilodinella requires a whopping 240,000 mirowatt seconds. Ich requires 50,000 microwatt seconds.

The better UV has the quartz sleeve running the full length of the reactor. This allows the water to be close to the lamp. As you move away from the lamp intensity drops. Lamps that sticks in and illuminates only one end of the reactor and is blocked by fins causing shadows have poor performance. As can be seen in the UV program plot.

Bottomline is running the UV without knowing how much it puts out and not controlling flow is what I consider "not sized". You really have no idea of the dose and what it kills. People get fooled in the packaging and cool looking blue light. Not all UV work the same.

 

[Clay]

Also, to assume that the life cycle of ich is somehow interrupted is a bit foolish. The parasite spends little time in a free swimming stage that would effectively be removed by a UV. Some? sure. All? no. Because of that, you only reduce a small number of the parasites, and that does nothing for the parasite on the fish or in the substrate. And that's just ich.