Is it OK to dose Vodka and run an UV ?

[reefwars]

a uv doesnt do alot for ick anyways it would only get free swiming parasites plus like mentioned it also reduces beneficial bacteria

[Casey8]

Originally Posted by TimT

Not all the bacteria will be floating in the water column. Many are attached to a substrate... like a bio pellet or live rock or inside of pipes etc etc.

I dose sugar and vinegar and run a UV and it works fine.

Dosing sugar and vinegar ? Never heard of that, but I had a chance to look at the color of your corals picture before, they are amazing.

[Casey8]

Originally Posted by Titus99

Why not just turn off uv. Keep it ready in case of outbreak and change your practices. If your fish are healthy you shouldn't have to worry about ick. Your uv also kills benificial pods which is a food sorce so you don't have to feed as much.

You said that your carefully monitoring your vodka dose so why not carefully monitor your feeding

I only feed the fish twice a day with a mix of mysis, brine shrimp and pellets. Very little but I make sure everybody have a little share of it, nothing left over after 1 minute. I rinse the frozen food very well but still get nitrate and phosphate, don't know where I get it from

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Casey8

I only feed the fish twice a day with a mix of mysis, brine shrimp and pellets. Very little but I make sure everybody have a little share of it, nothing left over after 1 minute. I rinse the frozen food very well but still get nitrate and phosphate, don't know where I get it from

There poop

[Casey8]

Originally Posted by Titus99

There poop

Well ... it is natural to all of us. I think I have to live with it then. Vodka or bio pellets are my only choice.

[ScubaSteve]

I'm with Tim on this one. In the past I would have said it would be counter productive but the more I learn about carbon dosing, the more that opinion changes. When carbon dosing, the majority of the bacteria grow on a substrate of some sort, be it sand, rocks, piping, etc. Comparatively very little of it is actually in the water column. Sanjay Joshi has some articles demonstrating this.

If you are dosing bacteria however, like MB7, I'd shut the UV and skimmer off for a period to avoid just nuking the freshly added bacteria. I think the benefits of having UV preventing disease out-weighs the small decrease in bacteria.

I do VSV and MB7 dosing, though I don't run UV.

[phi delt reefer]

Running UV will not kill the beneficial bacteria as most are stating here - this is a running myth that has been passed on from person to person with no real data (that i have seen atleast - and i spend a lot of time online ).

lets look at some examples;

1. in reef tanks you can easily do 50%-100% water changes without heavily impacting the bio filtration the system is capable of. Why is this? Because the MAJORITY of the beneficial bacteria are housed in your sand bed and on your rock NOT in the water column.

2. when you want to see new rock you dont use old tank water (though it helps somewhat), you use a piece of ESTABLISHED live rock because it contains the majority of the bacteria you want in your system.

3. multi million dollar aquariums USE giant UV sterilizers with no issues and their bio loads - this includes reef systems, not just fowlers.

4. the water running through the uv filter should be mechanically filtered first or you will clog up the system and reduce the efficiency of the system. Pods shouldnt make it through mechanical filtration if you are doing it right. you want to use the UV to kill algae spores and water borne bacteria. Also - skimmers also pull pods out of the tank and nobody seems to be removing those off their systems.

5. is there any proof of a tank crash or algae bloom from running UV? (if the uv was killing beneficial bacteria then your phosphates and nitrates would jump feeding such a bloom or killing fish and corals)

6. lots of people run UV and are just as successful as those that don't. Its an extra layer of protection. If you are going to use it get a good system (like the Emperor Aquatics units) and get a Tom's Flow meter and make sure you are running the correct flow through the unit to optimize the filtration.

[daniella3d]

Well pretty much everything going through the UV will be killed if it is strong enough and if it is going through it slowly enough. Surly floating phytoplanktin and zooplankton will be killed, water become sterile.

I have looked at the water from my aquarium under a microscope and found a lot of little buggers here and there. The water become alive after sometime, from snails, crabs, shrimps larvae. I even had coral spawning and reproducing in my aquarium. So yes the water is pretty much alive and the UV kill most of that.

I never used a UV, never had a problem with any parasites because I do a strict quarantine and treat for what ever is in there as it goes. I think it is a better way of dealing with parasite than leaving them on fish in small quantity and trying to control them after with a UV. The fish will always have a small amount on them and be susceptible to outbreak.

Multi million dollars public aquariums often use natural sea water, so they don't really care for the cost of water change So they probably need the UV to kill what ever parasites could get in with the natural sea water. Since they have a free supply of sea water, they do more water change to control the nitrates etc...I wish I could be near the ocean and get free sea water...then I would definitly use a UV to run all the water through it very slowly to make sure it is clear of nasty parasites and protozoares.

I had a UV in fresh water for my discus because they has a problem with flukes..prazi resistant flukes, but the UV never did anything for the flukes, so I sold it when I got my saltwater tank. I never needed it.

In Coral magazine in an article called "Anorexic Reef" they explained that SPS grow much faster and better in a year old mature aquarium or more because of the zooplankton living in the water and feeding the coral. I have no doubt about this from what I saw in the microscope, so no more UV for me.

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

Running UV will not kill the beneficial bacteria as most are stating here - this is a running myth that has been passed on from person to person with no real data (that i have seen atleast - and i spend a lot of time online ).

lets look at some examples;

3. multi million dollar aquariums USE giant UV sterilizers with no issues and their bio loads - this includes reef systems, not just fowlers.

4. the water running through the uv filter should be mechanically filtered first or you will clog up the system and reduce the efficiency of the system. Pods shouldnt make it through mechanical filtration if you are doing it right. you want to use the UV to kill algae spores and water borne bacteria. Also - skimmers also pull pods out of the tank and nobody seems to be removing those off their systems.

5. is there any proof of a tank crash or algae bloom from running UV? (if the uv was killing beneficial bacteria then your phosphates and nitrates would jump feeding such a bloom or killing fish and corals)

6. lots of people run UV and are just as successful as those that don't. Its an extra layer of protection. If you are going to use it get a good system (like the Emperor Aquatics units) and get a Tom's Flow meter and make sure you are running the correct flow through the unit to optimize the filtration.

[Cal_stir]

Originally Posted by Casey8

I know I feed my fish too much but I don't like to torture them either, I want them to be able to fully enjoy their life in my small tank. Phosphate and nitrate are the reason I need to do something about it. I had tried bio pellets for 6 months and it had wiped out more than 3/4 of my sps corals from bleaching them. I have been dosing Vodka for about a month now and I am watching it very carefully to see if anything goes wrong with my coral. But so far so good, they are all coloring up more nice than before. If bio pellets is the only way that I can set up an UV again because it holds bacteria in the reactor like Cal_stir said, then maybe I have to try it one more time with those "scary" pellets.

recirculating biopellet reactors are entering the market,Reefdynamics is making one, I have built one and have just got it up and running, you can control how much aquarium water goes thru it and thus prevent total stripping of nutrients from the water.

[phi delt reefer]

Originally Posted by Cal_stir

recirculating biopellet reactors are entering the market,Reefdynamics is making one, I have built one and have just got it up and running, you can control how much aquarium water goes thru it and thus prevent total stripping of nutrients from the water.

cal can you post some pics of the unit. i was looking at building one from a broken phosban reactor.