Re: full time UV

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

Cavan said:

> I have a UV hooked up on my 30 but it's hardly ever
> turned on.  They're handy for green water (never had
> that) and grey slime (did), but I noticed that when it
> was on for a while, the plants looked a bit sickly,
> like they needed more iron.  Don't you have a problem
> with that happening?  I talked with Seachem about this
> issue and they said that a UV will zap iron and some
> vitamins.  


I think the term here is photoreduction, which reportedly happens to
EDTA, a common iron chelator.

OTOH, as long as the UV is on, the quartz tube will have little
appreciable build up of gunk -- not if the bulb is truly UV.  While it
is turned off, but still in the water line, it gains biofilm just like
any other surface in the water system.  So, I would guess that lamp
needs to be cleaned periodically depending on, among many other things,
it's on/off cycles.  Perhaps a UV cycler can informs here...?

Scott H.

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