This weekend I experienced my first Ich outbreak. I live in a Manhattan condo with my Girlfriend so setting up multiple hospital tanks for my fish is not an option. This led me down the “Ich Management” rabbit hole and ultimately into the world of UV sterilizers. I’ve spent the last two days scouring the internet and reading up on UV. As I understand it, there is a minimum dose of UV required to sterilize Protozoa (presumably Ich Theronts). The required dose varies from source to source, for example Aqua UV suggests a 90,000 µw/cm2 dose, BRS suggests a 180,000 µw/cm2 and FreshbyDesign suggests a 280,000 µw/cm2. Notably FreshbyDesign is the only one of the three to explicitly say “White Spot”, for this reason that’s the dose I’m aiming for. This dose is a function of three things: (i) Wattage, (ii) Dwell Time, and (iii) flow. My question is this, is there a minimum threshold of wattage for a sterilizer to be be effective at a non-zero flow rate? The genesis of the question is this table from FreshbyDesign for the Pentair Sterilizers:
They do not list any White Spot Dose flow rate for the 18w and 25w models, which implies that wattage just can’t Sterilize the Theronts which I don’t think is true. Theoretically if your flow was low enough you could eventually achieve sterilization, just by tanning the Theronts under the UV for 20 mins. We can solve for the necessary flow rate using the “Standard Dose”. For example the 18W standard dose is 30MJ/CM assuming 22 LPM of flow, this implies a total dose of 660MJ per minute. The we divide it by the desired 280MJ dose to get a LPM of 2.3 (or 31 gph which is pretty close to the 37GPH that BRS recommends for this unit)… so why not list it? Why put N/A, is there a minimum wattage required to be effective at all? I’ve emailed the company asking but no luck. I’ve also stumbled into anecdotal evidence that supports this on various threads I’ve perused these last two days. Would love to hear some thoughts on this from other folks who actually know what they are talking about !
Taking all that into account, I’m having trouble deciding on a sterilizer. I have a Redsea Reefer 170, probs 30-35 total system volume after accounting for rock/equipment. IceCap has a 40W sterilizer for $280 (https://www.coralvue.com/icecap-high-output-uv-sterilizer) and Pentair has an 18W sterilizer for $430 (https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/smart-uv-sterilizer-18-watt-pentair-aquatics.html). Both are similar sizes physically. What would you recommend? Pentair seems to be the gold standard qualtity wise but given the above comment about minimum wattage and the raw horsepower of the IceCap why not just shoot the lights out with the 40w? At the end of the day it’s a tube and a bulb, how different can the quality really be. Has anyone had experience with IceCap sterilizers before?
Thanks!
TM
They do not list any White Spot Dose flow rate for the 18w and 25w models, which implies that wattage just can’t Sterilize the Theronts which I don’t think is true. Theoretically if your flow was low enough you could eventually achieve sterilization, just by tanning the Theronts under the UV for 20 mins. We can solve for the necessary flow rate using the “Standard Dose”. For example the 18W standard dose is 30MJ/CM assuming 22 LPM of flow, this implies a total dose of 660MJ per minute. The we divide it by the desired 280MJ dose to get a LPM of 2.3 (or 31 gph which is pretty close to the 37GPH that BRS recommends for this unit)… so why not list it? Why put N/A, is there a minimum wattage required to be effective at all? I’ve emailed the company asking but no luck. I’ve also stumbled into anecdotal evidence that supports this on various threads I’ve perused these last two days. Would love to hear some thoughts on this from other folks who actually know what they are talking about !
Taking all that into account, I’m having trouble deciding on a sterilizer. I have a Redsea Reefer 170, probs 30-35 total system volume after accounting for rock/equipment. IceCap has a 40W sterilizer for $280 (https://www.coralvue.com/icecap-high-output-uv-sterilizer) and Pentair has an 18W sterilizer for $430 (https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/smart-uv-sterilizer-18-watt-pentair-aquatics.html). Both are similar sizes physically. What would you recommend? Pentair seems to be the gold standard qualtity wise but given the above comment about minimum wattage and the raw horsepower of the IceCap why not just shoot the lights out with the 40w? At the end of the day it’s a tube and a bulb, how different can the quality really be. Has anyone had experience with IceCap sterilizers before?
Thanks!
TM
