id recommend sticking to freshwater trops

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WHO'S YA DADDY

It depends on your budget and technical knowledge I would use ozone if I could afford all of the fail safes but as I can't I stick with UV which is more than adequate for my needs and needs no tinkering to fine tune. The only maintenance is changing the tube every 6 months and cleaning the sleeve.

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Alan

Thweeerp!

technical knowledge nil, budget just won £300.00 on the bingo ,lol seriously though had a bad car accident 6 years ago , no seat belt on ,went through the windscreen, left me with the memory scan of a gold fish,( no offence to the goldfish and their owners),lol.I normally have to read things many times and always have to write prompters down in order to remember things since the accident (funny memories before the accident fine ,funny world ain't it lol.

If you're undecided I would go for ozone. In my experience UV doesn't kill all pathogens and I always got whitespot prior to getting my ozoniser, particularly with fish like powder blues. Ozone can be dangerous if you pump it into your tank but if it goes through a skimmer before it returns to the tank, I don't think there is a great risk to the health of the fish. I run mine on a timer overnight for 8 hours when most of the fish are tucked up in bed anyway. Having lost 5 powder blues to whitespot with the UV,I would go with ozone everytime.

I think on comparitive flow rates they are equally effective as one another however with ozone it is possible to use higher flowrates especially with a skimmer therefore more of the tank water is exposed to it per hour than would be the case with UV.

That would be the reason for the apparent greater effectiveness of iradicating parasites. One thing of note though the pathogens will still be in there potentially as the ozone or UV sterilizer due to how they are used can only reduce back ground levels.

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Alan

Thweeerp!

Thank you both for your replies.

Hi Grandad (sorry dont know your real name) if you were to use uv follow these simple rules for flow throgh them.

Lamp./ Aquarium./ Flow rate per hour./
size ./ (upto)./

8watt . 40 gal 180L. 160 gal / 725L.

15watt . 80 gal 365L. 300 gal / 1360L.

25watt. 100 gal 455L. 400gal / 1820L.

30watt. 150 gal 680L. 450gal / 2045L.

50watt. 200 gal 910L. 500gal / 2275L.
.

These specs are for Marine water only and not trops or cold water, the flow rate must be correct as the uv will become just as bad as ozone , ie your fish will die as if the flow is to slow through them then the organisms will multiply ie bad bacteria, fungal spores, free swimming algea and dinoflagellates, viruses such as Oodinium and Cryptocaryon, also the water passing through the UV sleeve must be clean, idael to supply it from a pumped filter with good floss in it. The cavity between the lamp and quatze sleeve should be no more than 6mm as for pond and trops it is normally around 12mm.

For me if you have the spare cash go Ozone (O3) all the way with a Redox controller, and if your skimmer is in the house run a small amout of carbon on the out put of the skimmer.

HTH a little

Richard

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thanks richard, grandad, aka brian.

No problem Brian.

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UV is not as dangerous as ozone if you get the flow rate wrong i.e. to fast it will not kill athe organisms you want it to kill and too slow it will kill everything passing over the UV but it may not be treating enough of the tank water every hour to be effective at reducing pathogen levels.

UV will not directly kill tank inhabitants the difficulty with ozone is that you can over do it and if you over do it the ozone will be to high in the main tank itself and will obliterate every living thing.

Very different risk the UV is indirect through failure to treat the water enough whilst the ozone is directly dangerous as the ozone itself if used incorrectly will kill all life in the tank.

That is a very important distinction a UV if you get it wrong will do nothing and may as well not be there whilst ozone if you get it wrong will wipe out a tank.

Flow rate wise I do not think there will be any difference between marine and fresh water as the effectiveness of the UV is down to contact time with UV rays so the type of water going through is irrelevant although clarity is important if there is a high particulate content it wil reduce the UV ray penetration inhibiting its effectiveness.

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Alan

Thweeerp!