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I have had amyriad of problem with a 75 g for the past fw months so I have decided to start cmopletely over. I do not have a spot where the aquarium is out of sunlight completely. I had some major algae bloom on two seperate occasions. I was wondering if a UV would help or b/c I had larger fish in the tank (gars, very large clown knife and other good sized fellas) should I just switch to smaller fish. Would love some input from more experienced people. I also just bought new filters....a rena filstar xp3 and a magnum pro 350 (a little overkill but if it works, then will have a filter ready for another tank Thanks in advance

Jimmy,

Without knowing your tank parameters, I think that your fish selection was your problem. Big fish mean loads of wastes and I doubt that you had enough plants to absorb the wastes. I would love to know your nitrate levels in that tank!

Filtration will help. UV will help kill algae spores. However, you need to recognize the bottom line problem in tank. Large carnivores = large wastes = green water unless you do LARGE, frequent water changes!



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

I am planning on going back with quite a few fish that do not get bigger than 3 inches max. Mainly want to have furcata rainbow in there with other small "neat looking" fish; i.e tetra's and others along those lines. Think it would be necesaary for a UV? Just don't want to spend anymore money since I have all ready done quite a bit. What would you want when you ask about tank parameters? thanks again

oh, I also never even had water testing done or did frequent changes so that could have had a lot to do with it.....definitely a learning curve going pretty fast.

The only time i would suggest a uv sterilyzer in a fresh water tank is in an outdoor pond or in a freshwater tank with delicate fish (i.e. Discus) But not full time because uv sterylizers can hurt the tank as well as help it. You should use it in a tank if you have a break out of a desies (i.e. ick) and the uv sterylizer will eliminate any of it floating in the water.

But for your tank it should help with the algae. And you dont need to get smaller fish im positive its from the light.

For your tamnk to help prevent the algae the uv sterilizer should work so get it but dont run it 24-7 maybe 1 day a week or an hour a day etc.

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pnh

Hi you dont mention how long a period you keep your lights on for as this can have great effects on an aquarium, especially in a naturaly well lit room as found from my earlyer years. Before you go out and spend money on uvs i would highly recomend going back to good old days and make regular partial water changes and trea the fresh water with the appropriate water treatment.
Or you can use what we over in england call RO water. But this water is almost completly pure and has NO or VERY VERY little nutritional value.
Hope this helps.

If you monitor your water conditions, partial water change very regularly with gravel vacuum, and do not overfeed there is no reason for UV in a single tank.

If you have many tanks on one filtration system(they all share the same water) a UV might make more sense in that situation because it should prevent pathogens from passing tank to tank.

If you use UV, follow the instructions very well, especially the flow rate to the UV light.