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Green Water



Paul wrote:  "With all this talk about the effectiveness of UV sterilizers,
I am beginning to wonder if the one I got---a 10 watt, 14 inch Coralife---is
defective.  I can run it on a green water 55 gallon tank for a week, and the
water gets barely clear enough to see through the length of the tank.  The
residual cloudniss persists indefinitely while I am running the sterilizer.
What is this cloudiness?  Is it killed algae suspended in the water?  I
don't think it is killed algae, because when I remove the sterilizer, the
cloudiness increases and the water gets green again, with no delay."

I don't know what the cloudiness is, Paul, but I can describe the situation
I faced in more detail.  I had a 175 gallon tank with 720 watts of metal
halide/power compacts lights running 10 hours per day with a bright pea
green soup.  Visibility was 4 or 5 inches at most.  One could not see any
plants along the back wall of the tank 18 - 24 inches away.  I fired up a
Magnum 350 filter with a dose of diatomacious earth and use it to drive a 15
watt UV sterilizer (by a Dutch manufacturer).  I didn't turn the lights out
or down, and noticed steady improvements for the first two days.  On the
third day, the water was absolutely stunningly clear.   Perfectly polished.
So perhaps you do have a defective UV sterilizer.  ;-)

Regards and good luck, Steve Dixon in San Francisco
See you in Chattanooga