Will Uv Sterilizer Have Any Effect On Ferts?

have my uv hooked up and all but was wondering if this had any effect on ferts for my plants. I got it as more a precautionary measure due to having a few expensive fish in tank. Does anyone else run UV on planted tank? I was thinking if it was bad for the ferts i would just turn it off after a good 24hr of cycling the tank water and only use it if something breaks out or once a week for precautionary measures.

I'm running a UV 24/7 at the moment and need to perform a good trimming each week so I'd say not.

Have thought about the "run when required" theory but have a hard enough time remembering to switch my heater back on, after water changes so chances are the UV would end up 24/7 again before long!

the uv kills things.... so i can`t see it taking the minerals out of the water...

How much did you pay for it and where did you get it from?

I picked mine up from Swelluk for about £76 - its a TMC Vecton 15w

are they worth the cash???

I`m still on my first tank and i`m so tempted by all the gadgets,

CO2, UV plus i get to play god to lots of fish....

would you recomend it as i`m wanting an easy life with my tank and i`m thinking that it must do away with cleaning alge off the walls of the tank

Two reasons why I bought mine rightly or wrongly. First was because I had the cash when I was setting up my 55. Swell also had them in stock and so they got my money and second was that I tend to spend amounts of time working away from home, theory being that a UV would prevent any breakouts whilst I was away.

If you have the cash then why not but make sure that it doesn't take from something else that you may "need" as they really are not classed as an esssential.

Ste

i pretty much have everything i need baring fish as the tank is cycling.

I`m thinking about going for a heavily planted tank so the CO2 would be benificial and the UV would give me piece of mind, so all in all spending 2-300 quid would be worth it...

All i have to do is wait for my tax rebate

Hi, this is purely anecdotal with no hard facts to back it up. I was using a Turbo twist UV steralizer 24/7 and since I have turned it off (only plan to use it if needed), my plants have greened up wonderfully from the yellowish bleh color they had. And some of the plants that were very small and looking near death have grown freshly to about 3 times their former size. I can think of nothing else I have done that is different from my normal tank maintenance. I am still searching the web for answers on this. Possible break down of iron? As I said, its purely speculative with no facts to back it up, but you could try it for a week and see if you have any noticeable difference.

I have read on another forum that the UV can break down the chelated iron into a form that is not useable by the plants.

The experiment involved adding chelated iron in ferts to the tank and then doing chelated iron tests later on. With the UV switched off, the chelated iron could be detected by the test kit some hours later. With the UV on, the chelated iron went to zero within about an hour after the chelated iron was added.

It's not exactly conclusive because there is some debate as to how effective the chelated iron test kits are.

I'm using CO2 and UV on my 130ltr planted tank. Not really noticed much difference on plant growth either with or without UV, however I have only had UV in the tank for 2 weeks, so might be a bit early to tell.
Gut feeling is it will be OK, but the info about chelated iron is intersting.

I'm using this 9W Internal UV steriliser I bought from Lifeforceonline 9W UV sterilliser At £29.99 it seemed a really good bargin, I dont know how it compares with the more expensive units but it has made a difference in water clarity.

This link show a better pic Internal Steriliser.
It is a complete unit, with UV lamp section and powerhead. The whole unit sits in the tank using the suckers
on the back of the powerhead. Very easy to take out and move between tanks if needed.

Like others I wanted some UV for peace of mind, especially as I have shrimp in my tank and that can restrict
what treatments can be used.

Mr G