About UV sterilizers...

[DiscusJeff]

I have been thinking about purchasing one as a way of controlling parasites and bacteria in my tanks.

I'm curious to know if anyone has used these devices and how effective they would be for keeping discus. I seem to be having specific problems with gill related parasites such as flukes. Would UV kill flukes? Also, what brands seem to work best?

Thanks,

Jeff

[Willie]

UV will inactivate bacteria, but will not affect multicellular organisms such as gill flukes. Recommend basic tank hygiene over UV.

Willie

[Rob R.]

UV is really nice for algae and bacteria, but it won't help for parasites. It is also a pain to maintain the units as they seem problematic. Out of the three I have owned, three of them don't work anymore. Big waste of money IMO.

Do you feed blackworms to your fish? If so, that would be the first thing I would suspect. When I fed BW to my fish I had problems every few months with Hex and my fish had INCURABLE gill flukes. Now that I don't feed BW I no longer have these problems. HTH
Rob

[discus_nw]

Rob,

I find it very interesting you had fluke problems while feeding cbw's. I did, too. I also noticed and mentioned on the board a year or so ago that I noticed alot of cbw users also seemed to have more fluke problems than those of us who don't feed them. This observation was met with much resistance. Thanks for your post.

[fcdiscus]

Actually, I find the incidence of flukes rises with Frozen Bloodworms, not CBW. JMO- Frank 8)