UV sterilizers are not effective and we should all stop using them, Right?

[NanoDJS]

If your serious about UV treating your tank buy this and pull the 5 micron , use it for media. This will HAMMER any UV for water treatment we can buy in the hobby. https://www.filtersfast.com/P-Pura-...euPLu-ls1_aQsD--hb3Z1npfiEKP-IrBoChRgQAvD_BwE , BTW I am a mechanical contractor , this is what i do for a living.

 

[Robert M]

People will end up investing ten grand + in a typical 200 gallon system it's a fractional cost to invest in the recommended quality sterilizers since they protect display animals/ where all your time and focus is about to go

This seems counterintuitive to me. I have one of these expensive 200+ gallon systems and dose phytoplankton(micro algae) every day to help feed my refugium and coral and to out-compete my tank algae. It would seem to defeat the purpose to then kill all of that with a UV sterilizer. I guess my solution to algae problems is to add even more of the algae I want in the tank rather than try and kill everything that’s feeding my pods and corals.

Maybe one of these two approaches is better than the other, but since part of my hobby enjoyment is watching the strange cryptic creatures in my sump scurry around, I’d rather not sterilize them and their food source. Not sure how starving my pods will protect my fish.

 

[Scott Weinrich]

Fair call.
Firstly, I never read whatever "Terms of Service" you are referring to. If I broke a rule of this interwebs site, totally fine, I admit, I tried to make a joke which included the words "Democratic Party" and "Free Health Care". That is literally it.
I didn't say "I troll people on Twitter", I will happily DM you the exact joke that I posted, as I clearly cannot write it again or it will be removed.

I ask again, you said: "I saw he had 2 messages deleted because he was talking about how he trolls people on Twitter."? where did you see that? I know you didn't see that and have implied that I troll people on twitter. Thanks for labeling me.

And I really hope you can understand that you saying that I am trying to "make (my) point the only valid point." is a little strange to me, given that effectively EVERYONE has disagreed with me so clearly, that's going to be how it seems. That's also the thing about opinions and beliefs, they remain just that until enough evidence (be it peer reviewed or complete conjecture) comes along that satisfies a person enough that they may change their opinion.

Just because I'm not appearing to have an open mind to you, doesn't mean I don't have an open mind.

But I digress.

Let's kindly remember that I was referring to an INANIMATE OBJECT and trying to elicit a response from the forum. In responding, I kept insisting to not refer to hearsay and for something to be shown that was somewhere approaching a scholarly article. Peer reviewed is an outmoded term, I understand. I'll now change my wording and say scholarly article.

And, as far as I can see and based on reading every link posted, I have yet to find the holy grail of "scholarly article" that will finally prove their efficacy.

It felt wonderful to then have messages posted to me via my personal email about this thread. How anyone could have that information except for access via an administrator to this website felt strange and slightly scary.

So, enjoy living in this bubble, you can continue to not have someone bother you who incidentally has an extremely objective view on matters.

I've delete my account, not that it matters, because people have already passed around my personal email.

To be clear, it is fine to question things that are not well supported by data. The problem with your approach is that you don't actually present any compelling evidence that they aren't effective while there is a vast amount of scholarly data that they are effective against a wide variety of microorganisms. Now most of this research is not related to pathogen control in closed systems, but given that the probability of infection is dependent on the quantity of pathogen to which an individual is exposed, it is not much of a logical leap to believe that reducing pathogen load in a closed system would reduce the probability of infection. Taking Cryptocaryon as a model pathogen, fish don't experience mortality from a small number of trophonts. It generally requires an overwhelming number of trophonts to kill a fish. Thus, mortality may be reduced by the reduction in numbers of infectious theronts even if the UV cannot completely eliminate Cryptocaryon from the system.

 

[NanoDJS]

Here is some science for you Daniel76 , and you can look this up . Though I agree that UV is mostly a gimmick and not implemented correctly to provide good results if any and that manufacturers claims of it are a bit far reaching. Something else IS happening which will have a beneficial effect on the whole system .I have talked about before here to deaf ears. H2o2 is essential in the system, a UV will produce it in the water and also Hydroxyl Radicals which are essential in living environments... I dose H202 for over 30 years , never needed UV or vibrant or any of the things ya'll use now . Reefkeeping is the balance of many other balanced systems with many components and it fascinates me how they all bounce off each other.

 

[brandon429]

Robert agreed on that, your special approach precludes it

Of all people posting here possibly only you and two others dose live phytoplankton regularly, majority w benefit

 

[brandon429]

I think UV is not the wave of the future.

They just currently work darn well but anyone who arranges biology to work for them, reducing machinery or increasingly efficiency of feed-weight conversion ratios etc is on the cutting edge. Reduction of fail points is cutting edge reef science and testing how much diversity can be sustained per unit of measure is cutting edge

 

[Robert M]

Robert agreed on that, your special approach precludes it

Of all people posting here possibly only you and two others dose live phytoplankton regularly, majority w benefit

Ha—I don’t know if there’s a benefit (yet), but my 7-year-old boy asked me to get him a mandarin, so I wanted the tank to be a crammed full of pods first before I got one so I setup a small external pod tank and two phyto containers and am dosing everything... still don’t have a mandarin yet, lol.

 

[Dj City]

Still click bait!

 

[Shep]

As a reminder, please stay on topic and remember that political references/posts are not allowed. This is the final warning

 

[Scott Campbell]

This seems counterintuitive to me. I have one of these expensive 200+ gallon systems and dose phytoplankton(micro algae) every day to help feed my refugium and coral and to out-compete my tank algae. It would seem to defeat the purpose to then kill all of that with a UV sterilizer. I guess my solution to algae problems is to add even more of the algae I want in the tank rather than try and kill everything that’s feeding my pods and corals.

Maybe one of these two approaches is better than the other, but since part of my hobby enjoyment is watching the strange cryptic creatures in my sump scurry around, I’d rather not sterilize them and their food source. Not sure how starving my pods will protect my fish.

I would agree with this. A biological solution is nearly always more effective. All a UV sterilizer does is kill things and release those bound up nutrients back into the water column to feed more of the things you just killed. It may temporarily mask the problem but it won't solve the problem. When someone points out that a UV sterilizer is effective because every time they stop using the UV sterilizer the problem in question returns - my read on that is that the problem has never gone away. The UV sterilizer is simply making the problem less noticeable and observable. If you truly want to solve a biological problem like dinos or parasites, then you need to introduce and cultivate organisms that can out-compete and / or feed on the problem organisms you are trying to eradicate. A tank filled with sponges, tunicates, corals, tube worms, clams and other assorted filter feeders will make short work of free floating parasites. A biological solution is a *much* more effective way to deal with parasites or bacterial blooms or microalgae than just zapping them and immediately providing more food and nourishment for the remaining parasites, bacteria and microalgae.

 

[Scrubber_steve]

This seems counterintuitive to me. I have one of these expensive 200+ gallon systems and dose phytoplankton(micro algae) every day to help feed my refugium and coral and to out-compete my tank algae. It would seem to defeat the purpose to then kill all of that with a UV sterilizer. I guess my solution to algae problems is to add even more of the algae I want in the tank rather than try and kill everything that’s feeding my pods and corals.

Maybe one of these two approaches is better than the other, but since part of my hobby enjoyment is watching the strange cryptic creatures in my sump scurry around, I’d rather not sterilize them and their food source. Not sure how starving my pods will protect my fish.

live phyto?

 

[Robert M]

live phyto?

Yeah—I grow phyto under a grow lamp until it’s nice and pea green and then dose it into my DT and in my copepod tank. I’m growing 2L / week at the moment. Clearly running UV for me would defeat the purpose of all this.

 

[Scrubber_steve]

Yeah—I grow phyto under a grow lamp until it’s nice and pea green and then dose it into my DT and in my copepod tank. I’m growing 2L / week at the moment. Clearly running UV for me would defeat the purpose of all this.

IMO its possible your phyto would be accompanied by a population of symbiotic bacteria that both aid in its survival & may be detrimental to other algae.

Algae–bacteria interactions: Evolution, ecology and emerging applications

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

All I know.. the ocean is subjected to crap loads of UV light...

 

[LC8Sumi]

All I know.. the ocean is subjected to crap loads of UV light...

Not UVC though, as that gets filtered out by the atmosphere luckily

 

[FishDoc]

Feel free to link a scholarly peer reviewed article that says something different.

If you don't like peer reviewed scholarly articles, try this one from marine depot in 2017 : https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/blo...ut-uv-sterilizers-and-reef-aquariums.html/amp

I’m just going to point out that while some of the information contained within the Marine Depot article is correct, much of it is anecdotal itself and does not represent primary literature at all. To say that UV doesn’t work to sterilize water of harmful protozoan or bacteria is incorrect and can be found to be the cause in many scientific papers, though not directly linked with Reef tanks but much of what is known is a result of research in wastewater/drinking water treatment. Often, when people say UV doesn’t work, its more an issue of lacking wattage or lacking contact time.

 

[brandon429]

My bac lab at a beef plant in Texas panhandle had multi thousand dollar uv cleaned and serviced tri monthly by contractors just so tapwater could be used reasonably as pre rinse only before autoclaving and eventual sterilization of lab containers (contams still get through, without uv tap is filthy due to pipe slough)

we constantly did before after measures of uv, partially maintained uv etc I’ve seen aerobic colonies fluctuate due to uv efficiency up and down both in Petri dishes and in tons of hand counts we logged, tons.

*regarding fixing primary causes and uv as a bandaid:

evaluations change when one delves into work threads. Don’t think for a second we are even remotely good at working out large tank invasions where people cannot access a system for cleaning. UV should not be painted as a bandaid. It’s the sole saving mechanical device for thousands of tanks because we cannot collectively help people with large tank invasions, even if you start and manage the tank to exact specs. People are quick to name several imbalances that if corrected will preclude the use of UV, try applying those in tank help threads and see if they’re as consistent as claimed

Work threads for large tanks are no go zones mostly, usually noncompliant with everyone’s for-sure fix. Uv earns statistically significant numbers of fixes by force but at least it works

uv is still a cheat to biological balance agreed, so studies that work on balance without machinery are the brightest upcoming changes

keeping in mind the perpetual humbling that happens in work threads even today also makes it hard to discount uv use just yet

 

[LC8Sumi]

I’m just going to point out that while some of the information contained within the Marine Depot article is correct, much of it is anecdotal itself and does not represent primary literature at all. To say that UV doesn’t work to sterilize water of harmful protozoan or bacteria is incorrect and can be found to be the cause in many scientific papers, though not directly linked with Reef tanks but much of what is known is a result of research in wastewater/drinking water treatment. Often, when people say UV doesn’t work, its more an issue of lacking wattage or lacking contact time.

...or trying to use it against organisms that are not really in the water column, but 99% attached to some surface.

 

[Neoalchemist]

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/6/m006p295.pdf

Here you go.

While your at it,

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/6/m006p295.pdf

Here you go.

if your going to base your tank build around this knowledge set your going to need a trickle filter and an under gravel filter 1 maxijet 1200 per 50 gallons of flow, and also, keeping sps long term is virtually impossible. Goniopora and most nems are also off the table. Brown corals only as most others wont survive.
Now that I think about it, most of the respected authors back then recommended uv in addition to those things.

 

[Scott Campbell]

I’m just going to point out that while some of the information contained within the Marine Depot article is correct, much of it is anecdotal itself and does not represent primary literature at all. To say that UV doesn’t work to sterilize water of harmful protozoan or bacteria is incorrect and can be found to be the cause in many scientific papers, though not directly linked with Reef tanks but much of what is known is a result of research in wastewater/drinking water treatment. Often, when people say UV doesn’t work, its more an issue of lacking wattage or lacking contact time.

There is no question UV is extremely effective at sterilizing water. Works remarkably well for many applications (swimming pools, wastewater treatment, etc.) And works great for flow through systems to sterilize ocean water before it enters your tank. I'm just not sure how much sense it makes in a closed aquarium system once the troublesome organisms are already present. With most commercially available set-ups you are at best killing a portion of the free floating pest organisms while providing the remaining pest organisms a steady stream of dead organism nutrients with which to survive and reproduce. Seems a bit counter-productive. You would have to have a lot of flow, contact time and wattage to kill the organisms faster than they reproduce in such a situation.