Aside from the heat issues, you should also know that the Jebao 55w UV is huge, at least much larger than I was expecting at about two feet long. Just a heads up so you can think about where you'll put it. That said, it does absolutely work wonders on Ostreopsis as others have shared, especially for the price.
Thanks I was thinking to put it hang on the side of the tank or up and use a pump directly from my tank not from the sump or how do you recomend using it?
It's fairly heavy so it probably won't hang well on the side. I would agree that pumping from the display tank and not the sump is better. I had a large piece of acrylic that I laid over the tank and set it on top of that. I used a pump in the display with a ball valve to regulate the flow, because as @Javamahn said you want a slower flow (although the 55w UV on a 30 gallon tank might make that irrelevant anyways). It wasn't a pretty setup, but it worked.
@IKD Assuming for the moment check out that link to post 905 above and see if that makes sense. Raising nutrient levels and then allowing them to fall naturally might be part of your solution.
@Jolanta I'm not sure that any specific level will be best, but I would still not let either N or P fall to zero, if that appears to be happening. Keep N and P at least somewhat balanced and present.
Thanks
If we cant see it, it never happened
This is awesome information! When you say to deal with a bloom, I should continue to work on getting my P levels to around 0.1, correct? Also, would love any thoughts on the UV sterilizes. Is there any minimum wattage needed to kill Ostreopsis?N and P are both necessary, but P concentration level seems to be the more crucial in terms of suppressing the bloom.
And encouraging competition is only ONE of the good things that comes with correcting nutrient levels.
For example, one big reason that you're still not picking up any P on your tests is that bacteria are hard at work trying to break down the "armor plates" that these dino's leave as detritus when their die.
Dino's make a lot of cells and those skeletonized, dead cells are an extremely concentrated "carbon source" – something like a 3000:1 carbon ratio! – so it takes LOTS of N and P to break all that detritus down. (If you're familiar with garden composting, things like newsprint and sawdust are really high in carbon ratio, but only score something like 400:1.)
That bacterial lock on P is caused by the dino bloom AND it's usually what keeps perpetuating the dino bloom. Pretty nice system they have! ;Bored
No available P in the water from that lock means that every new generation of dino's "starves" and switches to heterotrophy – they simply eat the copious amount of bacteria still around and keep blooming. Once the new generations have dissolved nutrients available, they "should" lose the impetus toward heterotrophy and bloom formation and return to their "normal" autotrophic, carbon-limited (and invisible) lifestyle. Ostreopsis puts a "nice" twist on that vs some of the easier ones to beat. It's very ideal not to let them get established – always deal with the bloom ASAP. Unfortunately, folks usually have no way to really tell what they're dealing with until someone talks to them about Selecting a microscope.
I've been looking at the coral life turbo twist. Kind of a neat concept of having the water flow around the bulb 3-12 times over depending on the size. Also people have been having luck with jebao's.
It will arive next week.
