White Spot Uv Sterilizer

[charles bentley]

does a uv steriliser get rid of wite spot? or does it just stop it from apearing. if you no what i mean?

 

[Truck]

it wont get rid of it once the fish are infected, it will kill any parasite in the water column though.

 

[charles bentley]

what is a good sterilizer to buy for a 240 liter tank?

 

[rabbut]

If your care is good, you don't need UV. In fact, I'd argue that you don't want it as it weakens your fishes resilience to disease... If your fish are constantly going down ill, to be blunt, then your care is not up to scratch. Don't sacrifice good care with UV, as it is asking for big problems before too long. Don't get me wrong, UV has applications, like in ponds for green-water (not in a tank, as high nitrate/phosphate/ammonia are the main triggers and all immediate issues to live stock) and in commercial retail/wholesale fish-rooms, where you have a lot of fish going through high-stress conditions, but it is a potential troublemaker in a tank

All the best
Rabbut

 

[ben1987]

The best way to use a UV would be to run it when something shows up, or wehn adding a new fish. Not 24/7

UV will kill White spot in the water collum but not on the fish. The fish will need treating. For your tank a TMC vectron 300 would be enough.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I would actually disagree with the above. There is no harm in running UV 24/7 and its a good preventative measure. Yes if you have good water quality and healthy fish it probably wont be doing anything but if one of your fish does become ill and come down with something like whitespot it will help to prevent it spreading (as mentioned it doent kill it on the fish but when it goes into the free swimming stage it will be killed then, preventing it spreading to the other fish).

This is even more important if you have fish that are particularly prone to gettign whitespot or other waterbourne parasites.

 

[ben1987]

running one 24/7 makes the fishs immune system less effective when they do encounter something. I dont know which way is right tbh. Heard so many differing opinons.

One of the most important thing though, is dont go over the reccomended flow rate to the lamp. This decreases contact time and makes the unit less effective

 

[SkiFletch]

Running a UV 24/7 will prevent the transmission of pathogens. Therefore if you do something unwise and introduce a pathogen, often times only the orignal infected fish will contract the disease. Remember though, as a vertebrate, a fish's immune system is not drastically different from ours. It's capacity to fight infection is generated from contact with the pathogen, so it's chicken or the egg... Kill the pathogen before it contacts the fish, thus it never gets the antibodies, or allow it to contact the pathogen, make the antibodies and get a remembered immune response...

I personally run it 24/7 both to prevent disease transmission, AND to lessen algae growth. FWIW when I had a clean, FUNCTIONING UV sterilizer running I've never had a transmission of disease from one fish to another. The one time I had an ich outbreak jumping from fish to fish, I found out (too late) that the lense in the unit was covered in gunk, making it non-functional. Lost 2 new introductions to disease since then with a clean UV sterilizer and the disease was NOT transmitted to other fish. Take that FWIW