UV and it's affect on algea

[nickg]

Due to my recent bout with unwanted parasites, i added an uv sterelizer. I havn't scrubed off the green algea on the glass for a while, because it seems to stress eveyone when my hands are in the tank. The uv has been running for two day's now and the algae has seemed to subsided a bit. Is this an affect of the uv light? Does sterelizing help in algae control? The way I understand it algae grows through light & nutrients.

[Spanky]

Hi Nick,
Yes the UV will help some with the algae, just don't rely on it for algae control.
Have you noticed that your skimmer is working a little better too?
Jerel

[nickg]

Havn't noticed any skimmer difference, but then agian it isn't the greatest skimmer either. I'm hoping to add a sump soon, prob. get new bigger skimmer then. I like the uv so far, water looks clearer. Can't stand all the pumps and hoses in the diplay though.

[Doug1]

Nick, once you have the sump set up, you can move a lot of the hardware to it, rather than having it hang on the main tank.
IME a good sump design will have some sort of tray or other support for a filter pad and or carbon bag. This will trap most of the algae you scrape loose(use a log handled scraper) and the uv willl keep the algae from spreading so much assuming you ar within the proper flow rate params for the unit you have.
Keep iin mind theat phyto plankton is a valued part of the food chain as well as zooplankton and indiscriminant use of aa UV will reduce that. Algae is like cyano, and dinflaggelates, its all food, its only a problem when water params get outta whack and it over runs the tank