Getting the right exposure to kill parasites...

[mikeguerrero]

I just purchased the Turbo-Twist 3X UV Sterilizer, it's the 36 watt unit and rated for up to a 500 gallon tank. My tank is only 72 gallons.

Coralife, recommends 400-1200 gallons per hour. On the box it says:

"The flow rate needs to be low enough to provide the appropriate exposure dosage, but high enough to treat the entire volume of the aquarium with appropriate frequency".

I have the Mag 700 connected to it and at 3 feet of head pressure my GPH is 500.

So I'm well within the lower end of the spectrum and I want to be, if I am to zap the free floating parasites.

But I'm getting mixed messages, since Dr Foster's and Smith has a chart for UV sterilizers and it says the conflicting data.
Take a look at their chart:

UV Bulb (Watts) first column; To ControlBacteria and Algae (gph) second column; To Control Parasites (gph); last column.

4 60 N/A
8 120 N/A
15 230 75
18 300 100
25 475 150
30 525 175
40 940 300
65 1700 570
80 1885 625
120 3200 900
130 3400 1140

Okay if I use this chart I'm in between 30-40 watt so my Max GPH should be 200 gph if I'm to control parasites. I'm over this since I'm at 500 gph.

Do you see the logic here? I'm confused, can the guru on the UV lights step in and clarify this confusion?

Thanks,

Mike G

 

[skipm]

You also have to remember that your UV has 3x the contact time as a regular UV due to the turbo twist. The chart they are giving you is for a regular single pass sterilizer, go with the chart that came with your unit and you'll be fine. The main thing is the contact time and the twist part gives you longer contact time than a straight unit.

 

[Vafik]

You beat me too it Skipm. Also do you plan on having it in-line and using it the whole time? You have to remember that everything that passes threw your UV will die. Not sure if this will effect a reef tank but I know from keeping planted tanks that you don't want to run a UV 24/7. It will mess up the water chemistry if you dose ferts so if your supplementing something in your beautiful tank it might have a negative affect. Just something to look into.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Thanks Vafik and Skip,

I do plan on running the UV 24/7 at least until the parasites are under control. After that I'll have to see what I do. I must cross the first bridge before I get to the second.

MG

 

[Vafik]

Now I have heard of ppl running their UV 24/7 and there seemed to be no ill affect. But a little more research wouldn't hurt. I also have a turbo twist and love it. I set it up so that it hangs on the front of the tank and runs off a power head at about 200 gph. Probably alittle less then 200. That way I can move it from tank to tank if I need it. I ran mine when I had a green water outbreak on my 36 gallon bowfront planted tank. Worked great. It's nice the way I have it set up so I can move it from tank to tank if need be. I had a 20 gallon that is also planted that had an ammonia spike and broke out with Green water. It was nice not having to buy another turbo twist and not having to take it off line of my 36 gallon.

 

[mikeguerrero]

It's like a convertible, top down on sunny days, top up on rainy days...

 

[aromano]

I like what you said:

It's like a convertible, top down on sunny days, top up on rainy days...

I think many systems can benefit from UV sterilizers, but I personally would only use it when necessary, instead of running it 24/7 all the time.

Here is some info I found interesting about UV Sterilizers:

"Dwell time, the amount of time a given quantity of water is exposed to a given concentration of radiation may be calculated at about twenty gallons per hour flow per watt U.V. This value or more watts per unit is adequate for providing a good kill rate per pass and will substantially reduce planktonic micro-organisms and organics concentrations.

U.V. has been known to aid in oxidation of organics, phosphate and nitrogenous compounds through the adjunctive production of ozone.

U.V. light is indiscriminate in the destruction of free-floating micro-organisms. It kills "good guys" as well as bad. These beneficial microbes are absolutely necessary in almost all captive environments. For this reason: 1) Initial, break-in periods of new aquatic set-ups are run without the U.V being turned on. 2) It is suggested that U.V.s be left off in conjunction with some therapeutic treatments and used with others.

Organisms maintained in a "well-filtered", strongly U.V. sterilized system seem to develop a type of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Like the boy-in-a-bubble, organisms kept in an almost sterile environment seem to lose their ability to ward off infectious diseases. Now, let me explain the qualifiers placed upon the terms above. A) There are no captive systems that result in 100% effective kill of all micro-organisms. B) This loss of apparent immunity occurs over long periods of time in a highly variable, non-selective manner. C) This "syndrome has, to my knowledge, never been scientifically documented; therefore my use of the word seems from my personal and second-hand experiences."

 

[mikeguerrero]

Andre,

Really nice material to add here on my thread. Let me tell you that I have only been running my UV unit since Friday night so it's only been barely 3 days.

Andre, I kid you not my fish are responding to something different in the water column, let me explain.

Prior to the UV unit on Friday night, my Chevron and blue tang were literally convered in ich beyond anything I've ever seen, in fact from visual inspection I gave them one more day to live.

I was tempted to purchase Stop Parasites and place it in my tank in an attempt to give them immediate comfort but thought against it for my corals sake, so I purchased the UV unit.

I connected this monster size uv unit and started running it 24/7. What came next was very much a surprise, my water started to clear up even more and my fish started behaving different by Sunday night.

The big difference was in the night inspection, my fish were not darting around frantically like before they began going to sleep in the live rock. To me that's an indication that the free floating parasites are being erradicated.

This was the most evident with the powderblue tang which never would sleep peacefully since the ich outbreak, now he is off to bed, something I'd not seen since the day he first arrived.

Andre, don't mis construe what I'm documenting, my two tangs are still covered in ich as UV does zero on infected fish, just that secondary infection is looking bleak.

If I were to have a microscope handy I'd be able to see the concentration of parasites less than without the uv unit.

I've learned something with ozone and uv. My ozone unit is powered by a Mag 250 which is slowed down considerally to match the intake of my skimmer. As ich infested water is captured down my mega flow into my sump, parasites are still escaping this small recirculating pump.

In fact, having my controller shut off my ozone every night and not firing up untill daylight hours was giving parasites more time to breed.

Well, with the introduction of the monster size uv unit that is rated for 500 gallons, I'm turning over major kill ratio on a 72 gallon reef. With the mag 700 on a closed loop system, I'm increasing the kill ratio by passing the parasites on a continual basis as they enter the sump.

Between the Mag 250 and 750, I'm turning over about 700 gallons of infected water per hour and as I sleep I feel confident that the free floating parasites are getting their share of radiation and ozone.

Andre, I literally feel like my tank has become one of those coin operated water purification systems.

Now on the flip side of the coin, since I have the coralife powerstrip timer, I'm going to run my uv unit on daylight hours, as I feel and have read that running the uv in the night is not necessary especially since plankton is encouraged to breed in twilight hours. I'll do this after one month of operation ensuring the ich is under control.

I also dose at night and having the uv light go night night is very convenient for me, not having to manually each night shut it off, saves on energy and the life of the bulb, which is rated at 8,000 hours of continuous use.

Andre, I'm not out of the woods, but I certainly feel I've found a trail to begin my movement back to safe ground.

MG

 

[aromano]

With that huge UV unit will definitely eradicate a great amount of free floating ich, and with in a few days the parasites will drop from the fish and the epidemic stage should start to diminish, until the situation is under control again.

I have my fingers crossed for you man, and I have faith that it’s all going to work out at the end. ;-)

 

[mikeguerrero]

As you know, I just replaced the pump on my UV unit, I pulled out the Mag 7 and dropped in the Mag 3.

I looked up the flow calculator on RC and found that at 3 feet I'm at 282 gph.

That gives me the target zone for killing parasites as per the instructions of my UV unit; 290 gph.

I also have the Ozone connected to my skimmer and that's on a Mag 2 which gives me 201 gph.

Between the two; I'm at 483 gph. So with 72 gallons of water in my tank I get about 6.7x turn over rate. Now this is for killing parasites.

I hope to see results in about 1 week. I'm not dosing any more medicatons, and the last medication that was in the tank has biodegraded more than 2 weeks ago.

The only thing I'm going to do is raise back the temperature of the tank; it's been at 77 degrees and I will bring in back up to 84 degrees in hopes of speeding the parasistes that are on the fish into the free floating stage.

I also intend on increasing the water flow in my tank with two additional MJ1200 in an attempt to have my megaflow capture more free floating parasites down to the sump, where Mr. Ozone and UV await them.

My chevron and blue tang are covered the most so I hope to see them come around with the intervention of UV and Ozone.

MG

 

[Dickie52]

Got my fingers crossed for you.....

 

[skipm]

I wish you the best of luck. It sounds like you have things well covered short of more medications. Are you still feeding the fish garlic?

 

[mikeguerrero]

I ran out of the garlic, they did love the stuff, garlic doesn't cure anything, it just stimulates appetite, because they became hungrier once I started feeding them with garlic.

Paying $30 dollars for a tube of garlic isn't exactly my way to fight ich, I feel you should feed them this once a week with fresh frozen food.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Well,

Reefers I'm back from vacation and have some reporting to do regarding the 12x Coralife Sterilizer.

My unit has been running full blast since last monday, that was the day I set it up on a mag 350.

Last Friday I took off with my wife to Anaheim, Ca to visit my brother and left my tank on auto pilot.

You all know that I'm fighting a ich epidemic in my reef and as I came home I was much surprised with what I saw.

I saw a really healthy tank with all fish swimming with their vibrant colors. The chevron and blue tang were the heaviest affected with ich prior to me setting up the UV system.

On Friday, the chevron was really covered and he hardly has any ich on him as I inspected the tank today.

The blue tang which I thought should be dead, since he was covered in ich, is still alive and has less ich as well, but not as clean as the chevron.

The others have no visible signs and the powder tang has just a few dots.

I attribute the sucess to my UV and Ozone.

Slowly but surely the tank is really comming alive with water quality and healthy fish.

I tried meds with no success and this appears to be really doing a positive number on my tank.

It's only been one week but it's a positive turn.

If I didn't already mention earlier, I dropped in two more MJ1200's on daytime timers.

I kicked up the turn over rate in my tank to 34x turn over rate. In a positive movement to capture more free floating parasites into my UV and Ozone.

It's working....

Like I mentioned in the beginning I will be keeping all of you updated....

More to come....

Mike G

 

[sadielynn]

Sounds like you are finally getting the upper hand Mike :mrgreen:

 

[skipm]

Your not out of the woods yet but it sounds like you have found the way.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Skipm,

You are so right, the ich is very present as I still see the cysts all over my fish. However, I don't see them going nuts in the night like before, they actually sleep.

There will be many waves of ich to come in the following weeks; I just hope those waves are fewer and fewer.

The UV unit and ozone is doing a lot of killing; I know had I not connected neither and left on vacation I would have come home to dead fish.

I wish I could've taken a picture of the ich before I placed these units on the reef. They were literally covered in ich, it wasn't a pretty sight, was very frightening.

I wish there was a med I could place in the tank that would run a long with the UV and carbons, but there isn't.

I'll watch in the next week to see if it gets better with the third wave of ich. If it gets bad I want to try Stop Parasites.

MG

 

[aromano]

Mike,

You are not out the woods yet, but when the visible signs of the parasites start to be less and less as the days go by, it's an excellent sign that you are slowly winning the battle. This is great news and hope these little suckers are gone for good within a few more days.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Andre,

I'm carefully watching all my fish for cysts. It's looking a lot better compared to last week. What I'm waiting for is the second wave of cysts to hit my fish. Only then will I really get an idea if they are dwindling in numbers.

As I write this post I just feed my corals phyto plankton and noticed that all fish are peaceful.

Let me tell you it was very hard seeing them suffer in the night, scratching and literally going nuts.

I shut off my UV for about 20 minutes while I feed phyto, as the UV is very destructive to the plankton, I assume it's still alive, even though it's in my frig, does anyone know if it's alive?

I mean I've had this stuff for about 11 months as it's a ton and made by Kent Marine.

Anyway, I'll be posting again as I see change whether pos or neg...

MG

 

[skipm]

The Kent is not a live product but a stabilized product. There are a few live phytoplanktons available like BioPlankton and DTs, I think that Reed Mariculture also sells one and I am sure there are others. If it is not sold refridgerated or frozen then it is not live but a stabilized product. Refridgeration will help preserve the freshness longer in the stabilized ones after opening though.