Hezzy, have a read of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyoph ... ultifiliis
Titus wrote:
salt...1.002g/cm3 being the accepted required amount. The conversion to ppt is beyond me after several drinks.
That's specific gravity, it is much easy to work with straight w/v proprtions, such as 1kg into 1000l = 1ppt. Everyone has a set of scales, not many have suitable refractometers.
UV clarifiers and sterilisers are essentially the same thing, but sterilisers tend to be of higher power. However, there are quite a few factors at play. If you have a UV-C intensity that is half as strong, if you reduce the flow rate through the unit by half, then the algae or whatever you are trying to kill gets essentially the same dose of radiation. For big systems you will need a higher wattage light, because although a low wattage light at low flow might kill them off, it takes too long for all the water in the system to be exposed, leaving plenty of time for multiplication. I'm running a 40W UV light, but in a reflective stainless steel housing, which increases the intensity, so it would be equivalent to maybe a 60W tube in a black plastic housing. I run the water through it as part of my internal tank circulation system, 5-6000lph during the day, but I slow it down to about half that at night to save energy, and give the fish a rest
Quote:
Would the UV light affect their operation and/or would I need to increase the relative sizes.
UV-C radiation will kill beneficial bacteria too, but as they mostly reside on your biofilter media, you shoudn't reduce their population by too much, unless you are running on a minimum amount to start with. You'd probably only need a 10-15W unit, but I wouldn't rely entirely on it, salting as well to speed things up is a good idea IMO. Get one with a stainless steel tube, the internal reflective surface increases the intensity of the UV, and therefore the effectiveness-allowing a higher flow rate, or more complete kills on each pass through it.
19C is good in that it speeds the life cycle up significantly over colder water.