RE: Effect of UV sterilizer on biological filter

["Joe Kopanski" <kopanski at earthlink_net>]

> Arturo Batista asked if a UV sterilizer would affect an aquarium
> system's biofilter:
> while doing maintenance today I noticed that the tank has 1 PPM Ammonia.
This > is a long ago cycled tank; Nitrites are 0; Nitrates 8 PPM.  I do a
partial
> water change weekly or so, with the last one 3 days ago(15 Gallons out of
55
> gallons).  Could this be caused by the UV sterilizer, or perhaps because
when I
> did the water change I also changed filter media.

When I do a partial water change (15 gal. out of 55 gal.) and/or change the
filter media, I get an increase in ammonia from the usual 0 ppm to up to 0.5
ppm (no UV sterilizer involved).  My plants love this and pearl best the day
of a water change.  I use reconstituted DI (for Cu issues) with 0 ppm PO4,
so I attribute the increased pearling to the increased ammonia.  I need to
dose KNO3 to maintain any nitrogen for long.

Makes me wonder about very careful dosing with urea instead of KNO3.  Does
anyone do this?

Joe K in Maryland

Blooming in the yard:  azaleas, ranuculus ficaria (nice hybrids), species
tulips, adders tongue, Pushkina, Siberian Squil, and just too many others
things to list.