Inline UV sterilizer on canister

Hello,

I have a 75G tank with a 406 Fluval canister filter (245gph), one penguin 350, one remora HOB Skimmer 350 with some reef and:
1 Foxe face fish
2 clown fish
1 valentini puffer
1 diamond gobby
1 blue tank

Amm: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0

I've had the blue tang for 3 weeks but he starts to have some white spots on the fins (ich).
I was wondering if I could attach a Coralife Turbo-Twist Ultraviolet Sterilizer (36W) on the canister hose?

If yes, where should I put it? Is it powerful enough ir is the flow rate too strong? I want to have a level 1 sterilization..



Thank you so much for your help guys!

 

Well Coralife says 290 GPH, so you are close. Too slow and the unit will heat up too much though. Check the manual to see what the minimum flow rate is.

 

Thanks for your reply. So should I get a less powerful one?
Thank you !

 

I meant, should I get a less powerful UV sterilizer for 245gph canister filter? Tx

 

So here's the deal with UV and parasites:

First, each type of parasite requires a certain UV dosage to kill. Go less than that dosage and you kill some of the weaker ones, but you're not killing most.

The parasite I worry about most is marine velvet (Amyloodinium Ocellateum). It takes a dose of about 105,000 microwatt-seconds per square centimeter (mw-s/cm2) to kill it. I found the chart below referencing the turbo twist and the dosage it applies at various flow rates:



Note how at its "parasite" flow rate it only applies 1/3 of what marine velvet takes to kill it. As a matter of fact, there is only one parasite that can be found in salt water (Trichodina Sp.) that will die at this dose. I've never heard of it before or run into it in salt water tanks.

So what does it take to kill ich? Brace yourself...

280,000 mw-s/cm2 or roughly six times the dosage the Coralife unit applies at its "parasite" flow rate.

So... can the Coralife unit kill ich? The answer is yes. At a slow enough flow rate it will do so. The question is whether the unit can be operated at that flow rate for any length of time. I could not find any information about a minimum flow rate on the unit. You might want to contact Coralife and ask them:

1) What flow rate do you have to run through the unit to get roughly 280,000 mw-s/cm2 dosage?

2) Can the unit operate at that flow rate without overheating?

Looking at the nature of the graph, I'm guessing that flow rate would be around 100gph-ish (a total guess, btw). If so, and if the unit can operate at that flow, then that rate would be enough to reduce the infestation in the tank to a level that the fish can tolerate (you would be cycling your tank more than once per hour). You would have to operate it off of a separate pump and you would need to plumb in a flow meter.

Note that you will never get rid of ich with a UV sterilizer, you only control it, which is perfectly fine.

 

Follow up:

This UV sterilizer would be about what you need to run inline with your canister to kill ich:

Aqua UV Classic 57 watt UV w/Optional Wiper by Aqua Ultraviolet - AquaCave.com

 

What a great post. I will need to reference this if I ever get a bigger tank. k+ :thumbs_up

 

Thank you so much. So I guess with that GPH rate, my concern is that the UV sterilizer would not heat.. Interesting. So maybe I should just get a less powerfull one? What do you think? Maybe the 6x18W?
Amazon.com: Coralife Energy Savers ACL15600 Turbo Twist ultraviolet Sterilize 3x 9w: Pet Supplies

would be much cheaper too!

 

I wonder what effect multiple passes has on parasites or other organisms. I would guess they recover somewhat in an hour, but if the UV has a decent enough turnover the same parasite could pass through the sterilizer quite a few times per hour which would kill it. Not exactly as advertised, but still could kill.

 

A less powerful one probably wouldn't do it - remember that you need a lot of dosage to kill ich.

Also, I don't run my all the time. I run it on a 3 hour cycle.