Was my UV doing anything?

[mjk42]

Tank has been up and running for 10 months and I did a deep clean of the pumps and sump today. UNS R120 so display 90g plus sump. I set up with aqua UV from the start and made it through the ugly phase and have all of my fish at this point that are healthy . I took at the quartz sleeve to clean it today for the first time (way overdue….) and it is crusted with a white haze that I am assuming is calcium deposition.

Unfortunately when I disconnected the bulb it slid down and cracked the bottom of the glass tube so now my UV is shut down.

Before I buy a new tube I was wondering if the UV was actually doing anything over the past months with this extent of cloudy buildup on the glass tube?? Clearly learned my lesson to clean it more and not drop the bulb…. My big question is do I even need to put it back online?!?

 

[EnterName]

You can run a reef tank without UV sterilizer. It's a handy tool if your tank is experiencing bacteria blooms that deplete oxygen and turn the water cloudy or to reduce the number of active cells in certain dinoflagellate outbreaks (or similar), but a healthy tank doesn't need a UV sterilizer, it might even have a negative effect killing the little bit of plankton that actually manages to survive in our tanks.

You can check if the stuff is actually some precipitated carbonate by trying to dissolve it with vinegar/acetic acid, citric acid, muriatic acid, or whatever is available to you. I had a UV sterilizer running for years and it never grew any calcareous deposits... It's really odd.

 

[Tangdora]

What in the fluorescent tube looking mindblowingness is going on here lol. Have never seen this before. I’m sure you were getting a small dosage so would still replace. But have never seen a sleeve this bad. What kind are flow are you pushing though your UV. Also how do you have it mounted. More concerned with how flow may be moving through your housing.

 

[mjk42]

What in the fluorescent tube looking mindblowingness is going on here lol. Have never seen this before. I’m sure you were getting a small dosage so would still replace. But have never seen a sleeve this bad. What kind are flow are you pushing though your UV. Also how do you have it mounted. More concerned with how flow may be moving through your housing.

So looking into this more now it seems like the quartz itself is frosted because the bottom part is clear that wasn’t in line with the bulb… I was running 150 gallon per hour with 25w system targeting the dose for ich. From what I could find her when I set it up this seemed like an OK flow. Google suggests solarization of the glass maybe?? Super weird. Might just keep it off for awhile and see what happens….

 

[Tangdora]

So looking into this more now it seems like the quartz itself is frosted because the bottom part is clear that wasn’t in line with the bulb… I was running 150 gallon per hour with 25w system targeting the dose for ich. From what I could find her when I set it up this seemed like an OK flow. Google suggests solarization of the glass maybe?? Super weird. Might just keep it off for awhile and see what happens….

How does the actual bulb look.

 

[mjk42]

So looking into this more now it seems like the quartz itself is frosted because the bottom part is clear that wasn’t in line with the bulb… I was running 150 gallon per hour with 25w system targeting the dose for ich. From what I could find her when I set it up this seemed like an OK flow. Google suggests solarization of the glass maybe?? Super weird. Might just keep it off for awhile and see what happens….

How does the actual bulb look.

Completely normal

 

[Tangdora]

Completely normal

The bulb itself wouldn’t be calcified behind the glass, but are the ends excessively, black and burnt