Linwood
Aquarium Advice FINatic
So I'm battling a case of camallanus worms, but that's a whole different story. It does, however, make me wonder if I could be making better use of the UV light in the filter.
My guess is that it's a cheap bulk not bright in UV-C. Not sure, but they don't charge much for the addition, so that's my guess. There is one company here selling replacement bulks that it cames are better, true low pressure bulbs. I don't know if they really are an improvement -- they are about 50% more expensive. Anyone know?
But... again, my GUESS is that the dwell time is too quick to be really effective against parasites like ich and nematodes. So how can I get more dwell time?
Related change of subject... I am thinking of adding one of these to my little 10G quarantine tank, primarily to be quiet. I have two Aqueon HOB's and they are REAL loud. The canisters are quiet. Even a smaller one is too much flow, however, but I love the idea of lots of extra water and filtration in a QT.
Which brings me back to dwell time....
Can I throttle the flow (e.g. a ball valve) and drop it down to 15% or so of normal, increasing dwell time, without damaging the filter?
Alternative #2, I could rig a bypass with two valves, so 85% of the water flow recirculates directly back to the filter, and only 15% or so goes into the QT, low enough flow to be OK. This doesn't increase dwell time, but it increases the frequency with which any given bad creature passes the light. Is that the equivalent of increased dwell time? Does (making up numbers) 5 passes of 1 second in a minute do as much good as one pass of 5 seconds?
The fundamental problem is I can't see any way to measure how well it is working. Is there any kind of indicator, colored liquid, or some such one can use to test a sterilizer's effectiveness?
Anyone have any thoughts?
Any bad aspects of putting a big canister (e.g. 404B) on a tiny tank (10G) other than flow rate?
PS. If it isn't obvious, I want to make the quarantine tank more effective at ensuring I do not introduce bad stuff -- so in the future I'm going to prophalactically deworm while in QT. Maybe go through a couple weeks at 88F to kill ich also. Not sure what else, but I want to learn from this mess I have now.
My guess is that it's a cheap bulk not bright in UV-C. Not sure, but they don't charge much for the addition, so that's my guess. There is one company here selling replacement bulks that it cames are better, true low pressure bulbs. I don't know if they really are an improvement -- they are about 50% more expensive. Anyone know?
But... again, my GUESS is that the dwell time is too quick to be really effective against parasites like ich and nematodes. So how can I get more dwell time?
Related change of subject... I am thinking of adding one of these to my little 10G quarantine tank, primarily to be quiet. I have two Aqueon HOB's and they are REAL loud. The canisters are quiet. Even a smaller one is too much flow, however, but I love the idea of lots of extra water and filtration in a QT.
Which brings me back to dwell time....
Can I throttle the flow (e.g. a ball valve) and drop it down to 15% or so of normal, increasing dwell time, without damaging the filter?
Alternative #2, I could rig a bypass with two valves, so 85% of the water flow recirculates directly back to the filter, and only 15% or so goes into the QT, low enough flow to be OK. This doesn't increase dwell time, but it increases the frequency with which any given bad creature passes the light. Is that the equivalent of increased dwell time? Does (making up numbers) 5 passes of 1 second in a minute do as much good as one pass of 5 seconds?
The fundamental problem is I can't see any way to measure how well it is working. Is there any kind of indicator, colored liquid, or some such one can use to test a sterilizer's effectiveness?
Anyone have any thoughts?
Any bad aspects of putting a big canister (e.g. 404B) on a tiny tank (10G) other than flow rate?
PS. If it isn't obvious, I want to make the quarantine tank more effective at ensuring I do not introduce bad stuff -- so in the future I'm going to prophalactically deworm while in QT. Maybe go through a couple weeks at 88F to kill ich also. Not sure what else, but I want to learn from this mess I have now.
