Can You Beat Algae or Skip the "Ugly Brown Phase" Using a UV Sterilizer in a New Saltwater Tank?
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- čas přidán 9. 03. 2021
- Is it possible to avoid the ugly stages of a new reef tank setup using a UV Sterilizer? The answer is no...but wait until you see what UV can do for your cycling tank when it comes to algae, dinoflagellates, cyano, bacterial blooms and more!
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This is one of the most difficult hobbies I've ever picked up. It's a money pit with ups and downs. When you're up it's really rewarding though. Your videos have helped greatly.
Thank you for doing this for the community! I love the new style, You are pioneers!
Thanks guys for the talk. I bet just adding a bio pre-filter would influence the test seeded or no seeded. It would collect the spores of both the algae and bio. 5 weeks of collecting both would increase bio and decrease algae. The uv doesn't make the algae disappear, it makes it so it can't reproduce, so you would collect it in the pre-filter instead of on the rock.
Always great information thanks guys 👍
I think it would be interesting to see if there is a difference between different types of dry rock. There may be elements in the rock that could be affecting different things.
It would be interesting if you ran UV (low flow) and used a toothbrush to brush off the rock surfaces. That way you are killing the free floating algae that releases from the rock.
Ah would have loved to see a control with inverts included too since almost no one runs a reef tank with zero CUC to my knowledge. Love the effort though guys keep it up!!!
Hi from England. Love u guys. Keep these great videos coming 👏🏼
Thanks for keeping up the investigates.
Love the format, but the data dump of yesteryear was also cool.
Made me feel like a Jr marine biologist 😅
My very first tank years ago I had an algae problem. Short brown hairy algae. In put on a good uv sterilizer and since I live close to the coast I grabbed some really big hermit crabs. Brought them home and put them in a quarantine tank for a week then put them in my main tank. By the time I woke up they hat eaten all of the algae. Never had another issue
Thanks for all the work guys
I can tell you why the one with no uv but slight cloud in water look best. The bacteria in the water outcompete everything else. From what dr Tim said on one of his interviews is that bacteria that floats around the water replicates faster then anything else. Not only that is can consume nutrients before algae can. Once you take them out algae can take hold. So pretty much from what I understand from Dr Tim is use bacteria to prevent algae. I’m going to try that plus algae scrubber combo to see what happens.
Thank you for this video guys
What a great test and excellent analysis. I'd love to see this test performed 1) with startup bacteria and then nothing after that 2) with daily/weekly addition of bacteria and with and without UV in both of these scenarios,
This channel is doing great things.
Love this new format!
Are you guys seeding these tanks with start up bacteria? It would be interesting to see which type you guys used. Thank you!
You guys lead the way in experimenting in reef hobby. Thank you guys so much. I got a bad Dino outbreak so I think imma use a UV. Hopefully it doesn’t hurt rest of biome
Hope u r happy random person/fish Reading through the comments
You guys should do a video on dosing different strains of phytoplankton which can reduce the ugly stage
Going to buy a second UV unit. Great vid!!
Sounds like for preventative pests issues running uv maybe once or twice through your tank volume every 12-24 hours would work well.
For the UVs, I figured it out it’s the light! Because the water is so clear, it’s more reflective! That’s the reason why hair algae are on a rampage
So I heard something around the 22:50 mark (yeah I watched 20+ minutes of guys talking about UV and algae :D) that Randy said which I think is a point that went over his head due to the wrong conclusion. He said "The control tanks have a bacterial problem" I think the problem would be if there wasn't enough bacteria doing it's job, and this is very evident in both UV tanks. We call it ugly, but the reef actually benefits from having those simpler lifeforms actual take hold and occupy as much growable space as possible on the rock, this seems to really inhibit how fast algae can grow. Sure the cyano you don't like, so siphon it out, but at the end of the day the the bacteria you didn't kill with UV is what is really taking the fight to the algae from taking hold.
Best thing said during this whole conversation - it is a giant pain in the ass to plumb in a UV after the fact. No truer words spoken! Had a Dino outbreak. Plumbed in a closed loop with a COR-20 and 80watt sterilizer on my 210. The plumbing in my stand was perfect, no real room left. Had to plumb it on the side of my tank (Wife factor here as well!) and it was a nightmare. Almost took a hammer to my display! Good thing I didn't but man was it frustrating. On my next system I will plumb it in from the beginning.
i agree i waited months before i installed my uv... i also waited 2 months to start water changes. i had very few problems, the systems has other issues but that was due to mistakes with my rodi system.
This same test running two UV's would be very interesting too
I wonder how this would affect a live rock/dry rock mix? A lot of people, (me included) have issues getting enough dry rock from trusted sources to start a tank, so we supplement by buying as much as we can afford, then finishing out with dry.
I never had a an ugly phase in either of my tanks because I followed your advice and didn't turn light on for 4 months in either tank and I started with dry rock in one of the tanks but had some pink spores so it was so called seeded!
what happened after u turned on the lights? no algee ?
Good info...haven't used a UV in years. Just started up a 55 gallon and I've had great luck "minimizing" the "ugly tank" phase by using live rock from my office tank, live sand and Dr. Tim's. The tank cycled in about a week, and it's been pretty solid so far.
I'm setting up a 150g right now, and since Live Rock is not available, I have some rock in an old tank cycling. I took like a cup of sand from my established tank (17 years old) and within days, the funky smell went away, so I can see the seeding dry rock as 100% a viable method to reduce the ugly. I dont' think you can eliminate it entirely. 4 months of cycling should help.
Have you tried to turn the light intensity up slowly? If you see an issue the cleanup crew can’t take care of back off and wait until it’s under control. Then start increasing the intensity again.
If you guys don’t ever need one of those Red Sea tanks you can send one to my house. 😁
Interesting video. May I suggest a different approach that works really well for me?
Dose with a quality beneficial bacteria mix.
Pack your refugium with macro algae from the start. I am a Sea Lettuce Ulva Lactuca fan which won’t melt away without nutrients.
Keep light in display low but high in refugium.
Result is low nutrients, less severe ugly stage.
The desirable micro biome will grow and spread in the meantime.
A lot of beneficial bacteria will come in on the macro algae.
I use a canister and never had issues
Never had the ugly stage in any tank, I use a ton of live rock it has a very diverse amount of bacteria a lot more diverse then the bacteria you buy in a bottle, after the cycle throw in a diverse clean up crew and don't over feed or over stock your tank!
Mike, where did you get your live rock? I am about to start a tank and want to do live rock, but people tell me don't do it. Then they tell me that pests etc are all unwanted. So where did you buy your live rock and any issues with pests?
Hello, Is there any test videos not running lights on full blast or even utilizing a skimmer to remove heavy organics? Also I may have missed it, was any water changes done during this test? UV in conjunction with other filtration methods? I’m really interested in what results I could expect in my house. Like y’all said pretty much no one would let their tank get to that point. Any links or additional info? As always thanks for all the time and effort trying to help everyone get a better understanding of what we’re all trying to accomplish.
for my 125g setup coming up i'm planning on not running lights until my turf scrubber has gone thru a few harvesting and a week for light setup post that. so maybe 2 months
Just started my first reef tank about a month ago and still have zero algae- bio-film yeah, but nothing else so far.
Using 80lbs of "life" rock and Bio-spira to start, then used Fritz zyme-9 and dosed Ammonia. MAJOR bacteria bloom that stoped after 2 weeks (Until I recently seeded new brightwell blocks with Zyme-9 and bloomed again)
It took 2 weeks to fully cycle, then I did a 80% water change added phytoplankton, Copopods, Chaeto and a couple days later, a couple clowns and a midas blenny, a couple days later, a small clean up crew.
I have a bag of clear FX and a couple bags of chemipure elite to clear the water and clean phosphate as the filtered tap for initial fill was laden with tons of phosphate and started at .30 and my target is .03.
I have a 24W low flow UV in the sump, but chose not to run it during the cycle, and still won't till my pods increase in population, but I think the clowns murked them already.
Honestly waiting for algae so I can wipe it out and then add corals.
Oh it's coming. Sometimes it takes 3-4 months. Be very careful to not add any sensitive SPS or LPS like Hammers, etc. If you pull all of the nutrients out with Chemipure and other products, Euphyllia will die. A SMALL dose of Vibrant for Reef will keep the ugly phase under control. The normal dosage is 1ml per 10 gallons, I would dose half that once per week for a couple of weeks. It works great and is just natural bacteria.
Ive never encountered any ugly phase because i was dark cycling my tank for couple of weeks. I only started switching on my lights when my first few corals go into my tank. Till today ive never experienced any major algae issue.
I have a ehiem UV on my reef it’s connected to my canister then goes into the media reactor... it’s working well
love to see this with prodibio or microbacter clean
As always a very informative video from you guys. I started mt tank on 9th Dec adding aquascape rock 2 clownfish and brightwell live bacteria. No light and had a bacterial bloom which has almost gone now after 3 weeks. Only ever tested twice in 4 days ammonia at 0.25 and no nitrite or nitrate readings. Has my tank cycled yet?
If you have ammonia in the aquarium, then it isn't cycled yet. Generally speaking, we're looking for 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite, and a small amount of nitrate. Once you get to that point, it's fair to consider the tank cycled from a nitrogen cycle perspective.
@@BRStv Thanks . I'm confused that it didn't cycle earlier using brightwell bacteria.
the new style is great
This is obviously not very scientific but I set up a new tank 6 months ago. Set it up with real live rock and dry sand. I can so far to say (touch wood) I've had no algae issues yet. I did have dinos for a week but after getting my phosphate up to from .00 that quickly went away. I've actually only ever had bad algae issues when using dry rock. I was surprised i didn't even get cyano.
Hi BRS team, my tank is going 4 months now and no ugly stage.
I got my small 10g pre established... but it’s been going through an ugly stage! I can’t get rid of the hairy brown algae at all... finally took the rock out after multiple attempts in other ways to get ride of it... still fighting it!?!?
What can I do???
So hear me out.. a new sterile tank with high flow UV and an algae scrubber. No lights for a month and no filters only flow & doc tims..then turn on high flow UV, then algae scrubber or fuge to control hair algae along side fish and clean up crew? Good vid. Can you mix it up and introduce variations on timeline and mixed filtration?
I was thinking the same. that is what I am going to do on my just cycled RS. 650P
How about starting a new tank, using live rock from previous system with some new rock, new sand, and having dino's amphidinium show up?
I’m currently using live rock from a month and half old tank it was a 20 gallon I just upgraded to a 75 and bought some live rocks from a complete stranger on Facebook marketplace so I’m waiting to see how this will turn out
What about dosing vibrant from the get go.
Do you think sustained bacterial blooms have an impact on the algae growing on the rock for the non-UV tanks?...i.e. par reduction = less algae? Or is it not significant enough par and or duration to really matter?
Dr Tims REFRESH.... for the no UV tank... it works.
So where is the update on the XXL 750? Haven’t seen it in a very long time.
Definitely over due! There is a recent photo on this thread if you're interested 🙂
www.reef2reef.com/threads/brs-wwc-hybrid-tank-update.802568/
I think UV only fix the single cell algae (green pea soup in koi pond world) and not the hair algae.
Excuse me, could someone tell me what is that white slime? Because Im fighting it with RAZOR ( Brightwell ) but after twoo weeks or so the thing comes back. Sorry my English, Im from Arg. 🇦🇷
Thanx in advance 🙏
what about dry rock with dr tims bacteria?
Great video, so at what stage would you turn the UV on ? Or could you run the tank for 4 months lights off, then turn the UV on when you turn the lights on ?
I don't think that we've quite perfected the best timing yet. That said, your strategy sounds reasonable to avoid the issues that we faced in this test 🙂
You can beat the brown phase with live rock - the right cleaner crew and the most 2 important WATER CHNGES and the lights being on to long also not overdosing Chems
Aka, where do you get your live rock?
@@Newt211 I’ve had it for 15 years Fiji rock they don’t sell it anymore 110 pounds of it
@@3jimp thanks
Im using live sand and dry rock rubble in my 29 Gal bio cube, im ordering a custom dry rock piece but wanted to start cycling the tank. Should i run lights out with just the heater and filter on?
You don’t need lights on for the live rock only for when you add coral and frags
Some thoughts and questions as I am cycling my 2nd tank this month and have a UV from first tank. This video is perfect timing and hitting home for me
Could the “murk” in the no UV tanks impeded photosynthesis compared to the clearer H2O in the UV tanks?
Would running the UV only during lights ON or OFF times allow for more biodiversity or attack certain uglies similar to dinos entering water column at night?
What bio diversity is being effected by UV? Im assuming nitrifying bacteria is not because it lives on surfaces. These tests suggest it would be something that lives in the water column.
Thanks for posting these experiments BRS!!!
Great test, I got to admit I feel slightly sorry for the clowns tho
I don’t mine always attack me when I stick my hand in. Does little bastard.
Can anyone please help identify the fish at 34:25?
Anyone new to this will also appreciate the ugly stage😄
One thing you didn’t mention about any of the tanks is what is the redox of each aquarium as it’s going through their algae problems in its breaking in stages? Did you ever try raising the redox of the tank to equal that of a natural saltwater? If not, why?
Would have been nice to know some redox values. Though I'm sure it was as best as most hobbyist would have it with the way the aquarium was set up and dosing. The uv would only be helping redox.
Question is bacterial bloom are prevented by UV, but what about nitrifying bacteria survived UV ? What about copo pods etc , all the benefiting things what happened to them ?
The important thing to remember is that only things passing through the UV sterilizer will be affected. A vast majority of nitrifying bacteria or copepods don't live in the water column, so they're less likely to pass through the UV sterilizer as a result.
Follwing your test with UV, did you try the same test but using ozone instead to see what will be the result? Alain Montreal, canada
How does algae get in a newly setup aquarium? Is it airborne? I understand what feeds it but cannot find the answer as to how it appears in the first place, if a tank is bare and has no external contaminated materials added such as rock, sand or plants.
Algae can be introduced in a wide variety of ways. Diatoms, and algae are everywhere and can show up even when it seeming came out of nowhere.
Can you run a UV like a chiller put a pump in the drain section and return the UV into the skimmer section?
Absolutely. The biggest thing is just getting the proper flow rate through the sterilizer.
My 120 has hair algea everywhere i have a cleanup crew n uv but not controlling
Remember that UV can only affect things that pass through it. Once you have an algae outbreak, the UV won't solve your problem. With hair algae, water changes and manual removal are your best friends.
will my UV sterilizer kill my Copepods ?? i dunno if ill get a reply to this but would be great
Would turning on the light at 5% and ramp it up every week help ?
Since the algae is photosynthetic, that very well could help! 🙂
14 days to flatten the curve?
Riddle me this.. The suggested UV flow rates are the same for each size BECAUSE its based off the UV being used on the recommended tank size... SO .. a UV 40 is 925/1574 gph for algae on a a 160/260 gal tank so basically 6x turnover and for bacteria its 157 to 260 gph..so its 1x turnover /hr ... so If you use a 40 on 90 gal tank at 540 its 6x gph but also the bulb is stronger and almost 2x longer so the contact time should be long & strong enough to kill protozoa as well. ? So does upsizing give u both?
In theory, the larger than suggested UV on a smaller tank should work. This would make for an interesting test so that we could give you more than a "probably" answer.
Any uv sterilizer for a 15 g nano? I can’t get rid of these Dino’s
Check out some of the smaller options from Aqua UV. They have some hang-on options as well as a smaller 8 watt sterilizer that can be plumbed into your sump if you have one.
www.bulkreefsupply.com/protein-skimmers/uv-sterilizers.html?product_list_dir=desc
Those 2 clownfish: "all fun and games, but holy crap, can somebody send a clean up crew please".
can you buy a wet rock so you dont go though this phase? people say dry rock is why the ugly phase happens. so will live or wet rock make the ugly phase not happen.?
Quality live rock definitely helps!
So UV stops cyno, but not hair algae. Got it, but I think everyone knows that already.
LOL i'm the dude that's quarantined every single thing. It sucks. Its a serious PITA
never gonna QT corals
hehe only fish
@@MrDon967 it’s a pain but I’m paranoid. Fish for sure though. With coral I’m getting close to deciding that I’m not gonna bother anymore.
@@phatduckk just make sure you dip them tho always so there aren't any hitchhikers good or bad
@@MrDon967 oh always. Without a doubt 👍
@@MrDon967 I’m mostly questioning the “qt for 76 days due to encysted fish parasites” portion. The actual coral/reef pests is an unquestionable must.
8:30 sure it looks better and easier to take care of, but without the UV I have $600 extra to find another solution.
Great point!
Best conclusion was dry rock dry sand with UV , and tangs and good CUC. Best way to start new tank
UV bulbs degrade spectrum differently than other types of bulbs. You have no way of knowing if your UV bulb has lost its effectiveness, regardless of manufacturer bulb life recommendations. When your spectrum shifts, which you wont know.... now the ick in your tank can reproduce, and your fish have no tolerance or active immunity to the pathogen...... unless you test UV bulbs like you did T5s, you could be playing Russian Roulette thinking you are preventing parasites 24/7/365. All you need is 14 days of ineffective UV bulbs for Ick (less for Velvet) to explode!