Uv lights and YOU!

Gumbies R Us · Aug 7, 2025

I see a lot of people on here who run uv lights and I wanted to hear your opinion/ experiences with them. Do you think they are worth owning or keeping. Share your thoughts and options with us!

bubbgee · Aug 7, 2025

Oversized UV under the sump, low flow.. less parasites. Does not work on algae for me though so I have to keep adding a cleanup crew for that.

Quietman · Aug 7, 2025

Yes. It was only thing that eliminated my dinos permanently. Permanently meaning the 4 years I haven't seen them return since I installed and ran high flow rate for a few months. Water clarity is a nice bonus as is knowing I have some protection against pathogens.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Aug 7, 2025

Gumbies R Us said:
I see a lot of people on here who run uv lights and I wanted to hear your opinion/ experiences with them. Do you think they are worth owning or keeping. Share your thoughts and options with us!

Are you talking about uv sterilizers, or uv and violet lighting the tank?

Gumbies R Us · Aug 8, 2025

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Are you talking about uv sterilizers, or uv and violet lighting the tank?

Uv serilizers, probably should have specified that, haha

Randy Holmes-Farley · Aug 8, 2025

I used three bare bulb uv sterilizers in a closed sump during a dino outbreak, but only ran them during the outbreak and have since turned them off because I do not want to kill things in the water. I want microorganisms in the water to grow and feed filter feeders such as sponges, corals, copepods, etc. :)

PPBlimpy · Aug 8, 2025

I ran a 57w aqua uv @ 350GPH on my 300G. still need to install on my 210.

Helped with water clarity and i feel it helped with ich break outs. seems to help with algea on the glass, takes 2-3 times as long to form, but i also run an algae scrubber so that may be helping with the algae..

For a long time I actually ran it on a heater controller. Was set 2* lower then my heaters max shut off so if the tank started to get hot it would shut off. They push a lot of heat into the water when lit.

will probably do the same on this new tank