UV Steriliser - recommendations?

[Manrock]

I've trawled te site and can't find what I'm looking for.....I've run a low maintenance, heavily planted tank for nearly a decade and want to finally try an Igwami scape. I'm really scared of algae (usually just employ shrimp and fish to eat it and put up with low levels) and have read a lot about the Twinstar Mini or Nano being really good at keeping it at bay. But they are expensive. I've seen load of other, cheaper UV sterilisers and wondered if they are any good? Don't really want one in the tank either and it mustn't slow down the flow rate! Any recommendations please? Many thanks.

 

[zozo]

cheaper UV sterilisers and wondered if they are any good?

Very good in consuming energy and taking money from your pocket.

Totaly worthless at battling algae, the only algae they could kill/inhibit is some free-floating algae in the water column and thus passing/contacting the light. Algae that grow at steady places such as on the glass, plants hardscape etc. aren't bothered at all.

A frequent sufficient water change is as effective and cheaper disinfectant. If there is anything to disinfect... 🙂 Frequent water changes prevent infections from getting a foothold in the first place. 99% of the aquariums contain pathogens, healthy freshwater keeps fish healthy and keeps pathogens latent. Water changes prevent pathogens to accumulate.

Occasionally "1 sick fish doesn't make a disaster" same as the proverb "1 swallow doesn't make a summer".

 

[Manrock]

Totaly worthless at battling algae, the only algae they could kill/inhibit is some free-floating algae in the water column and thus passing/contacting the light. Algae that grow at steady places such as on the glass, plants hardscape etc. aren't bothered at all.

Thanks - but that's not what I've been reading here from others, George Farmer for one. He had no green algae on his Igwami stone at all and that was a first for him when he started using Twinstar. It only appeared on glass surfaces in that build. Lot's of people saying much reduced algae and lower maintenance time required - all very experienced aquascapers.

 

[sparkyweasel]

You're talking at cross purposes: Twinstar is not a UV steriliser.
Marcel's comments apply to UV.
Twinstar divides opinion, partly because the makers are very reticent about giving any meaningful information about it. There's a big thread about it here.
Twinstar

 

[Zeus.]

I have Twinstar nano and Chihiros 3rd Generation Algae Remove Sterilizer Doctor , the later is much cheaper and works better ( works better as bigger cloud of micro bubbles), I even use the Chihiros reactors on the twinstar.

Do they make any difference - dunno, the lack of any hard proof over the years suggests they don't, otherwise the evidence would be presented to us.

Even very experienced aquascapers can be wrong and sometimes there opinions are affected by sponsorship.

If taking the route go for the Chihiros and buy a few spare reactors esp if you have hard water 😉

 

[Manrock]

Twinstar divides opinion, partly because the makers are very reticent about giving any meaningful information about it. There's a big thread about it here.
Twinstar

Cheers - yeah I started reading that and lost the will to live! 😀

 

[sparkyweasel]

Lol.
To summarise:
The makers claim it's great, but won't say what it does or how it works.
Some people use it and are really happy because they have no algae.
Other people have to keep cleaning theirs because it gets covered in algae.
And of course there are plenty of people without a Twinstar and with no algae problems.