Usefulness of UV Sterilizer

A UV sterilizer only works when precisely tuned with a pump otherwise it is a complete waste of money. It like at Quiznos when they send your sandwich through the toaster conveyor if the speed of the conveyor (pump GHP) is not match with the heat of the oven (UV intensity), and the sandwich is not the right height from the heat source (proximity of water to UV), the sandwich will not cook right and neither will the DNA chromosomes be cooked correctly. In the case of dna chromosomes their bones get broken so they (the cells) cannot reproduce and multiply whether they be algae, bacterial, or parasites, even people why the UV us shielded on not visible.

Packaged correctly it is a very effective tool against all sorts of suspended pathogens. I use a tuned system called the "Green Killing Machine 24W" and it work great, I even have direct sunlight hitting my aquarium. Well worth the money IF its tuned.
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2750628

Unless your tank is 60G or less I would get the 24W. However I use the 9W on my 60 on a wall timer 12 hours per day at night and it works great and my 60 tank faces a northern window across the room. All my other 24W (4) work great on my larger tank all on 12 hour wall timers. Only occasionally will I have to turn them on 24/7 if I know in advance a bloom is about to be triggered by some medications or new sand.

The only down side is they are not portable like some can be made and again if tuned properly, but who want to be playing musical chairs with tank equipment?

Did you end up getting this? I just saw the 9w one at petsmart, but thought I'd check before buying it. It's for a 36 gallon tank. I have some fish with ich- I can't treat with salt or meds because of kuhli loaches, and I'm having trouble getting the temp up high enough and stable. The sterilizer would be great if it worked.

get the bigger size, works great!

They only kill parasites etc that pass through them, not a reliable treatment for ich. It will help.

clb- you can use meds with kuhlis, just start with half dose of a malachite green med to see how they do. Lots of vacuuming before redosing. If they seem ok gradually increase the dose. Lights off.

I have a turbo twist 9w in my 72g. I won't get into the specifics as far as flow gph vs. wattage, but in checking with their and several other recommended ratios, I'm almost perfect as far as the flow req.'s go for parasite and algae removal. And I did a quick check of the flow on my can to be sure. I haven't had any illness in that tank since. I can't say if the UV definitively helped with that because I try to do proper maintainance regularly, but one thing I can say with 100% certainty is that the water in that tank is crystal clear, and I thought it was clear before I added it.

CWO4GUNNER said:

Unless your tank is 60G or less I would get the 24W. However I use the 9W on my 60 on a wall timer 12 hours per day at night and it works great and my 60 tank faces a northern window across the room. All my other 24W (4) work great on my larger tank all on 12 hour wall timers. Only occasionally will I have to turn them on 24/7 if I know in advance a bloom is about to be triggered by some medications or new sand.

The only down side is they are not portable like some can be made and again if tuned properly, but who want to be playing musical chairs with tank equipment?

Click to expand...

Hi,

I am thinking of getting 2 9w for my 55g and 30g tanks. Can you explain what "tune properly" means. Thank you.

Ps. Looks like I found the post I was looking for.