Bucket Method Quarantine

Idea

Hi Riaan, so after much loss of stock I'm setting up a similar method to what you have described. Your thoughts please.
I have three large tanks divided in two parts each. I have stacked them. So water starts from the top flows through a small hole in the divide in the tank to the other side. (small to increase the water speed through the hole) Then down into the tank underneath then through the small hole to the other side then down to the next thank, through a small hole into the last tank side. (whew) from there it goes into a sump with a live rock filter, algae scrubber and finally through a UV light back up to the top tank. In effect there are 6 Tanks plus the sump. If I start the fish in the bottom (last) section, then after two days move them to the next and so on all the way to the top. It stands to reason that the tank on the up flow stays clean whilst the tanks on the down flow become infected.The UV should prevent any new free swimming stuff from going back into the top tank. If I keep moving the fish upstream to the next tank every two days we should have clean fish after 12 days? The only concern is will the water flow through the small hole that separated the compartments prevent the free stuff from swimming up stream into the clean tank? Pros are the water parameters are always the same. The uv and water flow will be slow enough to kill off the stuff properly. Hope this makes sense. What do you think, can it work.
 
Sounds as if it can work.
During the free swimming stage, the WS is not very strong swimmers. Doubt they will be able to up against the flow.

Provided the UV is big enough, and globe replaced every 3 months, it can work.
 
Well, they last for 6. But then they are done. Their effectiveness declines over time.

So instead of waiting until they are almost useless, rather replace them earlier to get the best out of them.

And using them in such a risky type of setup, I would much rather use globes that never delivers below 75%. Not even sure how to test UV lamps for effectiveness. Anyway, I will replace them on a much shorter time interval.
 
they last 1 year as per phillips website, efficiency start dropping after the 9000 burn time, this is a safe avg and you may get more out of them
 
Nemos Janitor said:
Is 9000 hours 6 Months
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nope, its 375 days, just over a year.

OK, Sorry.
I haven't use UV for the last 5 years. The globe unit I had on my Koi dam was 6 months.

But still, I will not use the globes for its full term on such a risky setup. How effective are the UV globes after 6 months?
 
Posted the same time.

efficiency start dropping after the 9000 burn time
Click to expand...
OK, learned something new today.
 
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RiaanP said:
nope, its 375 days, just over a year.

OK, Sorry.
I haven't use UV for the last 5 years. The globe unit I had on my Koi dam was 6 months.

But still, I will not use the globes for its full term on such a risky setup. How effective are the UV globes after 6 months?
Click to expand...

just as effective as 3 months, and 9 months, its rated at 9000hrs which means thats the efficiency of the lamp for its life time, they build in a buffer and you might get over 9000hrs but once a year is good enough.

the efficiency of UV is NOT from the lamp degrading so much , but rather how we keep the unit and quartz clean and the flow thru the unit
 
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Not wanting to derail this thread but since it has been brought up and statements are being made. Here is a little info on UV.

There are a few different types of UV-C globes. Ones that are made out of special glass and ones that are made out of quarts glass. The latter are much more expensive but emit twice as much UV. I am not talking about the quartz sleeve in the UV sterilizer. I am talking about the actual glass the lamp is made out of.
 
Ok so I thought because I started the thread ;) I should add my two cents worth. The majority of the cheaper globes are not able to function as a steriliser at the recommended max flow of the unit. They classify them as clarifiers. So good bulbs slower flow rate, and happiness. Overkill would be a good thing here. However this is for the purpose of the above. On your main tank you can kill a lot of good stuff as well. Sooo if I can open a can of worms :whistling: is it best on the outflow of the sump or before the sump.
 
can only kill what goes through the UV lamp, so no real effect on the filtration as the bacteria we want is not water-borne, the only side effect i have ever had is raise ORP levels
 
ok so that's good news. I built a fantastic (if I don't say so myself) Alge scrubber using the overflow box that the tank has, it then goes through the UV and then into the Skimmer. I was worried that I Was killing off any beneficial stuff through the UV. The scrubbers great by the way lol
 
Willie85 said:
@RiaanP do you dose any medicine for preventative measurement?
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Nope, not during the bucket transfer method. In fact do no chemical treatments for WS or velvet.
Maybe for bacterial infection, if present.
 
6 weeks.
10 days during bucket method, moved every second day.

Then rest of the time in a dedicated quarantine holding tank. Actually I got 2 holding tanks. a 90L and a 220L tank. Allows me a lot of options.
 
Theoretical, hermits can have WS cyst on their shells. So yes, they should go into the holding tanks first for 6 weeks. No point in doing bucket transfer as they are not hosts.

And new corals should also be quarantined. At least be coral dip to remove flatworms. Keeping the new coral in the holding tank should also not be an issue.
 
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