Benefits or Negatives of using a UV Sterilizer??

[abe77901]

Just wondering about the positives and negitives if any of using a uv sterilizer on my tank. I have heard, (rumors) that a pod population will not survive if running a uv. Any truth to that? My main thing is that I hadf a problem with my tank about a month ago and was wanting to make sure it was gone, so i was thinking of adding a uv sterilizer to my system but just wanting to know any negatives about it first. I have a 125 gallon fowlr, with a 3" dsb, about 90 lbs of live rock, and a 30 gallon sump/fuge full of critters.

[NaCl_H2O]

Plain & simple - ANYTHING passing through the UV will be killed: Pods, Algae, Larvale stages of lots of stuff, including parasites. Otherwise, it has no effect on other areas of the tank other than the resultant "cleaner" water column.

Since you have a fuge, that will greatly help keep your pods going. Just don't pump from the fuge throiugh the uv :o Take water from the sump, to the UV, and back to the sump again. You don't have to run the UV 24x7 if you don;t want. It will add heat to your tank, and may be the best reason to run it less than 24x7 ... like maybe just at night to do it's work, AND keep the tank temp up at night ;)

A UV unit becomes ineffective when calcium builds up on the inner glass tube. I had to clean mine with Vinegar at least once every three months. I am now using an Ozone generator instead.

What are you trying to cure?

[LoneStar]

I have a small 9 watt turbo twist on my 85 gallon system and it seems to work well. (knock on wood) I haven't seen any diesease or bad stuff in my tank. I only run it for a little while during the day time. The UV along with the pump are on a seperate timer. The pump is on one end of the sump, goes through the UV and then dumps on the other side of the sump bypassing the fuge so I don't believe anything will get sucked up and die lol...

[brewercm]

I had one years ago and didn't care for what it did to my pod population.