Question about UV sterilizers and ich..

[Kissfan79]

Are UV sterilizers effective in helping to prevent ich? Will they kill the parasites in the water that cause ich?

Jim

[Fish_wiz2]

No because ich is not free-floating so the uv really won't help.

[SEAMONSTER]

There is a free-floating stage in the life cycle of marine ich. Uv Sterilizers do kill some of that off...

[Attreui]

The best answer is maybe... They will kill any of the free floating ich in the water, they will not cure ich if you have it in the tank... so is it a preventative? Possibly depending on how much water actually goes through it, is it a cure once you put an infected fish in there? No.

[SEAMONSTER]

Yes, that is true. It is no cure, but it is a possible preventive

[LexSkizzle]

I can only speak from my experience, but on an old tank I had, whenever I had an ich outbreak I would use a UV Sterilizer and it would usually clear it up within 24-48 hours. If I took it off too soon(within a day or two of the first sign of an ich outbreak), it would usually come back. Again, this is just my personal experience with ich and a uv sterilizer. Good luck!

[kgross]

Yes it can and will kill the free swimming stage of ick. Now if it will actually help your tank out or not depends on how it is sized/feed. You need to have it powerful enough that you get a high enough zap dosage to kill the ick, at a high enough flow rate to actually run enough water through the unit to make a difference in the tank. You need 99% of the tank water to go through the unit each day, that does not mean if you have a 100 gallon tank, 100 gpd is all you need, for each gallon that goes through the UV after the first gallon, only part of the water that goes through the UV is water that has not been "cleaned". I can't remember the numbers and my book is loaned out, but I would guess it is around 2 or 3 times tank volume per hour.

[2006]

60 gph should give a 75 gallon tank 2 complete exchanges per day. I only have experience with a 25 watt UV at the above flow rate on a 75 gallon tank so I don't know if you will get the required zap dosage with a lower wattage sterilizer.

If you need flow rates for a different size tank let me know.

[kgross]

Sounds like you have a copy of the Aquatic Systems Engineering... Any chance you have the CD that came with the second addition?

Kim

[2006]

I've had this book for years a great resource. I don't remember getting a CD.

[kgross]

I understand the second edition had a Cd as an option. Mine is also a first edition, but I have it loaned out right now so I could not check the numbers......

Kim