[barbarian206]

i have purchashed a uv steralizer and now have it in the tank the water is pretine at the moment i would like to know if i have to leave it on all the time or can i turn it off ive never had one of these.

 

[BudHop]

I have mine on a timer for 12 hrs a day. seems to work fine & your light will last twice as long.

 

[kcirtappatrick]

2nd what BudHop said

 

[discuspaul]

Run it as little or as much as you want - some just run it for a day or two at a time when they feel they need it - others runs theirs 24/7 (and of course replace the bulbs much more often).

I use mine on a regular basis, for weeks at a time, and find that it helps to keep my tank water crystal clear 100% of the time - this of course along with frequent wcs, strong filtration, a rigorous media cleansing routine, and the use of Purigen and filter floss, as well as the use of fine pre-filter sponges on the filter intake tubes.
Not to mention the job a UV does in ridding your tank of any floating algae in the water column and harmful pathogens.

 

[esworp]

I only run mine as needed (used it twice in 8 months.)

Some folks have said that the uv will augment your ferts in the water column - but i have no science to back it up.

I use mine as a co2 reactor full time, and just pop the lamp on when I feel like the water needs a little extra.

 

[barbarian206]

thanks guys i have it running 24/7 for now i think i wil get the timer for that and my lites ty for all your help much appreciated

 

[jrman83]

Seems to me that the light would last less time being switched on/off so much. Regular light bulbs can fail from this. Whatever works I guess.

 

[wetworks]

I recently went from running my UV sterilizers 24 hours a day to running them on a timer for about 12 hours. I also set one up as a sort of control that is 24 hours, and one that I only run for about 12 hours once a week. So far (3 weeks) I have found that all of the tanks with UV on them have equivalent water quality. I want to test this a bit further, but so far it looks like if you put it on a timer for a period each day that will allow all of the water in the tank to go through it about 5 times that would probably be enough for most uses. More data will follow as my experiment continues.

 

[greenfish]

I run mine 12 hours a day when the lights are off. I found that if I ran them with the lights on it actually raises the temp in my tank a few degrees.