UV Sterilizers (and Ick) - shoud I get the Sea Storm 15 watt

[PitterPatti]

Hi again. Well I did lose my last little clown loach. I could just cry.

I will submit pics but from what I can tell it looks like and sounds like it was ick.

so that was 4 clowns and 4 balas

one guppy died on me, the day after all this, so I moved the other 7 to a 20 gallon, put the heat at 83, and put the emperor 400 in there and new ick guard with new RO Water. the guppies all seem to be doing fine now.

I have a chance in a couple of hours to buy a Sea Storm 15 UV sterilizer, but I cannot find any info on it on the internet except a reference that it is from Coralife.

Just need to know if anyone has one, or knows of it, and do you think this is something I should invest in, to help clear up the ick. I have to sanitize the 55 gallon and start over, and have to get these guppies thru it, in the 20 gallon.....

please email quickly if you think this isn't a good idea or good uv sterilizer........gotta pick it up here soon, before someone else buys it.
thanks
Patti M

[PitterPatti]

one more question, when I am cleaning up the 55 gallon to start over, can I reuse the emperor 400 biowheel, with the good bacteria still on it?

I mean, I could run ick guard thru the tank a couple of weeks, the tank is now empty :cry:

I have the heat on 90 in the tank right now, and want to get the sterilizer.

gosh, I just want to get six little loaches and have it be alright for them.

Also, I just saw a post about sand...........I would like to get other loaches to add to the 55 gallon with the clown loaches, so maybe sand would be best to switch too. I cannot handle live plants right now, too much, so fake plants and sand.

what is a good sand to get?

I want to take this slow, and get it right for my new loach family. any recommendations on combining loaches, and I will upgrade to the 75 tank here in a few months, as it will fit on my stand, and then upgrade later to 100 or so.... when I have more money for all the pumps etc.......

thanks!
Patti M

[loachmom]

Hi Patti,

So sorry that you lost your loaches.

I can't give you much info on UV sterilizers, since I do not own one.

If I had a tank that had been completely wiped out by ich, I would just leave it empty for a couple of weeks. Ich will die without a fish host. Keeping your temperature up will speed up the life cycle of the ich. In fact, keeping your temp at 90 should kill it outright when it is in the free-swimming stage. Your bio-wheel will be fine to reuse, in my opinion.

You could cycle your empty tank while you are waiting for the ich to die off. Just add a few flakes of fish food every day or so.

Also, I can't stress enough the importance of a quarantine tank. I keep a ten gallon cycled with an apple snail and some small fish. That is where I keep all new fish for a few weeks to make sure they are carrying no disease. So far, this has kept my main tank disease free for about 6 months now.

[PitterPatti]

Yep, fell into that "trust my LFS" thing, and then again, it could have been me, stressing out the fish........no blame throwing here, but more likely was the addition of newbies without quaranting.


Thanks!
Patti

[loachmom]

Yep, fell into that "trust my LFS" thing, and then again, it could have been me, stressing out the fish........no blame throwing here, but more likely was the addition of newbies without quaranting.


Thanks!
Patti

I've been there, too, Patti. I had a terrible ich outbreak over 6 months ago. Lost some loaches and fish.

This is a good place to learn, though. I've been learning lots, and my fish are happier and healthier.

Welcome to the forum!

[Jim Powers]

I don't know anything about the particular UV sterilizer you are talking about but I do have two Coralife Turbo Twist 9W units. I am very pleased with them at this point. They are easy to install and maintain and are compact. They also come in larger versions and are resonably priced (at least online). I have done a search of the Coralife website http://www.esuweb.com
But nothing comes up beside a front page.

[PitterPatti]

Hi Jim, Rob at Central Aquatics says "ESU discontinued that product long before Central Garden & Pet purchased Energy Savers Unlimited. "

I think I will look more into UV sterilizers at a later time, when I can spend some time on it.......

Thanks Jim.......that website is under construction.

Patti M

[Bitey]

I have 7 UV sterilizers (3 active duty, 1 reserve, 1 that I currently don't use and needs a new bulb, and 2 that are junk and need new bulbs).

The two junk ones are an older Coralife and an Aquanetics 8W. You can still find replacement bulbs. The Aquanetics clearly has a burned out bulb but I'm not sure about the Coralife. If anyone wants them, they can have them for the cost of shipping only. After my experience with those two and my Rainbow-Lifegard (now Pentair), I will only buy AquaUltraviolet.

The best budget UV is the AquaUltraviolet Advantage 2000. They now have a hang on version that simplifies plumbing a little. The problem is that (unless they changed recently) have 3/4" barbed fittings meaning you use flexible tubing with a 3/4" inner diameter. That's a bit big to be connecting to a powerhead or cannister filter. I use 3/4" tubing on my 125 gal tank with a 1200 gph pump, big polybead filter, and 57W UV sterilizer. All are separate components connected by the tubing which is connected to bulkheads at the back of the tank.

So if you got the Advantage 2000, you'd need connectors to step down the tubing size. If you don't mind spending more money and getting a cleaner setup, the standard AquaUltraviolet units are good. Get the ones with 3/4" threaded fittings and put 1/2" or 5/8" barbed fittings on them and you should be able to connect powerheads or cannister filters directly. I also like the quartz sleeve wiper option. Over the years, the main cost will be bulbs and the AquaUV ones do last 14 months. They last longer than that but 14 months is the recommended replacement interval. You might notice that a 25W bulb doesn't cost much more than 15W bulb so it might make sense to get the 25W unit.

It might seem expensive up front but I think never having to deal with perhaps the most common and annoying fish disease is priceless.

If anyone needs help with this, I can tell you which fittings to get and from where.

[doglover_50]

I haven't seen so far discussion about the value of sterilizers in general, rather than which brand.

My understanding (which can be suspect) is that UV sterilizers can be helpful, but are not necessary. And they will not kill off all of the ick in the stage after they exit the host fish. Readings I have checked seem to suggest that in mild infestations they may be helpful, but not for heavier outbreaks.

So I don't know if that would have done anything for you in this unfortunate situation. I guess what I'm thinking is--if you rank order most effective methods against ick, #1 is the use of the QT, rather than UV sterilizer.

As for your tank--the ONLY thing that is guaranteed to rid your tank of ick 100% is drying it out and ensuring everything you use with it was dried out. So you cannot keep that biowheel (wet--I would imagine fully dried, you could then keep it begin to regrow the bacteria).

Sorry for your loss.