What Is This??

[crackmonkey]

Looks like I need one whatever it is.


Picture

 

[a.d.wood]

Hi there,

Looks suspiciously like a UV light chamber for sterilising water.

I would have to say (IMHO) that they are not worth it. The flow rates required to achieve effective microbial death are not realistically achievable and organic matter and biofilms further reduce the effectiveness of UV light.

I have also looked at a number of papers suggesting amonst other things:

UV light is only suitable when used in conjunction with other sterilising regimes (eg disinfectants)

After UV irradiation, bacteria are able to regenerate and proliferate more effectively!!!

Regards

Andrew

 

[Lateral Line]

Agree, it appears to be a UV unit. UV's can have some use in marine setups, and I have a friend that has a huge UV unit on his garden pond setup, but in the average freshwater setup, they have questionable use.

 

[rvm]

I have a UV unit on my 140g, it was on there when I bought it! whether it is any use or not is questionable, but I will say I've not had any disease in that tank in the year and a half I've had it, and that included moving and stressing out 4 clown loaches!! If that is down to the UV then great, if not then great anyway!!!!

 

[rdd1952]

UV Sterilizers do a great job of removing green water (diatoms). They also will help control algae. I run one occasionally on my 75 gallon. I originally bought it to get rid of green water I was experiencing after cycling. It worked well and also my algae (stringy type attached to the plants) cleared up too. I took the sterilizer off (was running it with a powerhead rather than through my filter) for several weeks and the algae started coming back. I put it back on for a week and it cleared up again.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating it as a cure to algae problems but I do think the can serve a useful purpose in a FW tank. Mine (Turbo Twist 3X 9W) is a much smaller unit (and probably much cheaper) than the one in your picture but definitely did the job.