Forget aquariums for a moment. YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS VIDEO! Today’s post is about saving lives and making a difference in the world. After you watch this video, please share this video on your facebook pages and tweet about it in Twitter, and post it on your blogs.
It is one of the most incredible inventions I have ever seen, and IS the solution to ending the worldwide problem of the need for safe drinking water – especially in areas of abject poverty and refugee camps where the problem is worst. Just imagine how a nation can be transformed when its people are no longer parralized with disease, when they no longer have to spend the bulk of their day gathering water and food.
Imagine what your life would be like if you had to spend most of your day gathering water, which is loaded with pathogens that cause you to get sick. So, what little time you have left from gathering water, you spend fighting water-born disease. If our nation lived like this, we wouldn’t be free to work, to invent, to become educated, to be of service to others. Basically our ability to be productive in society would be severely diminished. Thus, this issue of not having practical access to safe drinking water is crippling the world’s impoverished nations.
What if this problem no longer existed? What if it were solved permanently? Think about it.
I am shocked and surprised how often I come across marine aquariums (reef or fish only) that have no U.V. sterilizer filter. These aquarists are playing Russian rulette with their aquariums, running the risk of being vulnerable to a parasite outbreak.
There are many different situations that can cause a disease and/or parasite outbreak in your marine aquarium. It could be adding new fish, or perhaps one of your fish changes sex and throws off the entire pecking order, or a fish dies or is removed and that throws off the pecking order; or say your chiller (if you have one) went on the fritze during a heat wave – and the list goes on.
And given that there are so many situations that could spark a disease or parasite outbreak, wouldn’t you want to protect yourself (and your fish) against this likely possibility? Who wouldn’t? And yet many aquarists don’t have a U.V. sterilizer on their system. It’s like rolling the dice and crossing your fingers, hoping you don’t have a disease outbreak.
So, before I go any further, let me just say that - yes – you deffinitely need a U.V. sterilizer. That is, if you want your fish to live for years rather than months, and if you want to avoid even the possibility of a total system meltdown (scary scientific term). Yes, this is my opinion, but it is also backed up with over 11 years in keeping saltwater fish (primarily reef tanks) with only three disease outbreaks – and two of them were caused by human error. By disease outbreak, I mean multiple fish dying from parasite infestation. This is attributed to aggressive use of U.V. sterilizer filters. And don’t forget, I’m not talking about just one tank. I run a high-end custom aquarium design, installation and maintenance business, where we service many customers with large saltwater aquariums.
So, yes, it’s a bold statement. And it also happens to be true. See – I don’t like problems or surprises when it comes to aquariums. Over the years of running my business, I have had to develop ways of preventing problems from even being able to happen on our customer’s tanks; and then having designed the system to be prepared to accomodate the problem if it ever does happen. This is sort of our company philosophy to aquarium system design and it is a preventative approach designed to prevent problems – so that we put far less energy into reacting to and fixing problems. Any way – enough of that. Back to U.V. sterilization.
By now, you might be thinking “yeah right – I don’t beleive you”. Well, I’m not saying that we’ve only seen parasites on some of our fish three times in 11 years. NOPE. We see low-levels of parasites on fish fairly often – but those fish are thriving and healthy and live long lives - typically for over five years, and are able to fight off the parasites. AND the parasites are not alloud to bloom to dangerous levels because the U.V. sterilizer kills the parasites when they are water born (verses dormant in the substrate) and looking for a host.
So, what is a U.V. sterilizer filter? The U.V. stands for ultraviolet sterilization. Basically, it contains a special light bulb which emits U.V. “C” light. U.V. “C” is the band of U.V. light that gives us sun burn. So, essentially, a U.V. sterilizer filter is “sun-burning-to-death” (scientific term) or sterilizing your aquarium water as it passes through the filter, and thus killing any water-born parasites. It runs 24/7 and is very cheap to operate and can PREVENT parasite outbreaks. What aquarist wouldn’t want to be able to prevent a parasite outbreak? This is why having a U.V. is a no brainer MUST HAVE filter for your aquarium.
In addition, the U.V. filter will prevent bacteria blooms (caused by water-born bacteria – milky or cloudy water) and phytoplankton blooms (cause of green water). The result here is clear water. Of course, this doesn’t remove the underlying cause of the bacteria bloom (excess organics and insufficient bio-filtration) which must still be dealt with.
Sizing is probably the most important factor when selecting your U.V. sterilizer for your aquarium. My general advice is to slightly oversize your U.V.. Most sizing charts are based on aquarium/system volume. The last thing you want is an undersized U.V., because then it is almost useless (i.e. it is too small to prevent disease outbreaks). Several parameters to consider are system/tank volume, water flow rate through the U.V. filter, and bio-load (how much life is in your tank). So again, when selecting your U.V. sterilizer, choose the next one up in size, as recommended on the sizing chart.
Example: If your aquarium is 100 gallons and the sizing chart recommends a 30watt UV for a 90g and a 40watt UV for a 120g, then go with the 40watt UV.
One of the primary criteria used in sizing a U.V. sterilizer is the water flow rate through the unit. See, if you send too much water (too high of a flow rate) through too small of a unit, then it won’t be effective in killing the parasites. But for me (I’m lazy), that is too much work, calculating flow rates, etc., so what I do is take the manufacturers recommended sizing for my aquarium (gallons) and then choose the next larger size U.V.. This almost ensures that your U.V. will be effective in killing water-born parasites in your aquarium and preventing a disease outbreak. And nine times out of ten, if you do the calculations of water flow rate, UV kill rate, and total system volume, you will end up at the same size U.V. any way. One caviat here – this method is based on average bio-loading (average number of fish/invertebrates etc.) for any given tank volume. So if you are crazy aggressive with your stocking density of fish/corals/invertebrates/etc., then you may even want to choose a U.V. that is two sizes up.
Of course, U.V. is not the only effective way to sterilize against disease and parasites. Ozone is very effective if applied and monitored properly. But Ozone is far less forgiving than U.V., and while you cannot CAUSE any problems by oversizing a U.V. filter, you can cause BIG PROBLEMS by improperly applying and monitoring ozone. But more about ozone in future posts. For now, suffice it to say that U.V. is very safe and simple to apply to your aquarium filtration system, and there is no monitoring (unlike ozone).
You do need to ensure proper upkeep or maintenance of your U.V. sterilizer. Once a year, you must change the bulb and the O-ring and/or gasket, and clean off the quartz sleeve (housing the bulb). This may take 30 minutes to an hour to do, but is necessary because after a year of operation, the bulb has begun to lose its potency and the ozone gas produced by some U.V. bulbs will break down the O-ring and/or gaskets that seal off the quartz sleeve. And in some systems the quartz sleeve can accumulate mineral deposits that may reduce effectiveness of the U.V. bulb. A simple overnight vinegar bath and wipedown with a sponge will do the trick.
Generally, I’m not big on having opinions. I like to be open-minded, and opinions tend to cut us off from being open to learning something new. But when something works as well and as consistently as this does, well, I feel strongly about it. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. I hope this is of help to you.
I got a call today from a local hobbyist with a very common, and completely preventable, problem with his 55-gallon saltwater aquarium. The reason he was calling was he had a parasite outbreak in his tank and his Carribean Blue Tang was not doing well. Of course, I helped him out with a battle plan to resolve the problem with his sick fish. But more importantly, I taught him why it happened, what to do about it to resolve it, and MOST IMPORTANT how to prevent it in the future.
Unfortunately, this is one of the most common occurences with keeping saltwater aquariums and tropical fish, and yet it is very preventable.
The reality is that EVERY saltwater aquarium (and freshwater aquarium) has parasites and/or disease. Yes, I said every saltwater aquarium. When I used to work at The New England Aquarium (www.neaq.org), they were very strict about putting almost every new fish through a copper quarantine, and even after all that effort, some exhibits would have parasite or disease outbreaks. So even a public aquarium such as the New England Aquarium who takes fantastic care of their animals can have disease outbreaks.
The important thing to get is that we want to create ideal conditions so as not to even trigger an outbreak in the first place. And it is important that your aquarium setup to minimize that outbreak and prevent from killing your fish. Yes it is possible to prevent fish losses due to parasites.
The keys to preventing fish losses from parasites are as follows:
- put all new fish arrivals through an observational quarantine for 14-21 days. The life cycle of most parasites is 14-21 days, so if you hold them at least this long you can catch a problem before putting the animal into the exhibit tank. We prefer not to copper during this observational period. You may of course choose to do so, it’s just that I have found it to be more stress on the fish than necessary. Why medicate healthy animals? Again, while the observational quarantine is ideal, I understand that not everyone has the time/money/space for an additional aquarium. Just know that it can make a big difference if you can afford it.
- minimize stress (consitent and stable conditions, sufficient hiding places; good water quality; diverse diet; minimal changes)
- consistency and stability (in diet, temperature, water quality)
- minimize frequency and severity of changes to the tank – it’s not that you can’t add fish or change your aquarium around, but simply to realize that the more you change their environment – then the less stable it is – and this instability/inconsistency creates stress
- Oversized Ultraviolet Sterilizer filter - the key is that it be oversized. An undersized UV sterilizer is a waste of money, and an oversized UV sterilizer will only help and cannot cause any problems. Keep an eye out for future posts on what an ultraviolet sterilizer is and why it is so important, and how to use them. This is a big one – don’t make the mistake of skimping on a U.V. sterilizer. They pay for themselves in preventing disease outbreaks and have other benefits too.
- Cooler temperature – ideally 76F – Lower temperatures have been shown to help minimize the frequency and severity of disease outbreaks.
- Lower salinity 22-28 ppt – Low salinities do not work for reef aquariums – only use for fish-only saltwater aquariums.
- Strong water movement/circulation – There are two aspects of water movement to consider – the first is the amount of turbulence in the aquarium itself – the second is “system turnover”, as in how many times the aquarium’s entire volume is cycled through the sump (if you have one) and other filters (i.e. biofilter, protein skimmer, UV sterilizer, etc.). 3
These are some of the primary issues that can prevent and at least significantly reduce the frequency and severety of disease/parasite outbreaks in your saltwater aquarium.
In upcoming posts, I plan on covering each one in more detail. They are that important.
Please leave a comment on your experience with preventing disease in your saltwater aquarium.
