UV and coraline algae

[dphansen]

I recently bought a UV sterilizer and have noticed that my coraline algae has seemed to be vanishing. I am adding Kalk and a buffer to help, but it seems that it is not working that well. Would the UV sterilizer be killing the algae?

[kmk2307]

Hey dphansen,

That is interesting! How long was your tank steadily growing coralline before you added the UV? Perhaps the UV is killing the motile "spores" of the coralline algae. I know it is important to have low phosphates, high calcium, proper alk and magnesium, and stable pH for coralline to grow well. Maybe check out those water chemistry aspects.

Kevin

[ab5ebdxer]

I am wondering if the uv is killing off some of the phytoplankton that the coralline is using as a food source. How big is your reeftank? I would try to avoid UV sterilizer on a reef, it kills too much good stuff.

[speccialj922]

UV is not always the best form of filtration because it kills anything that passes through it. good and bad. so literally anything freefloating in the water is going to be broken down by it. the best bet is to only run it periodically, or use it on a qt ... IMO

[manderx]

it might slow down formation of new spots, but it shouldn't affect an established patch of coralline. coralline doesn't feed off phyto or anything other than light and dissolved nutrients.