Using a Uv sterilizer to treat sick anemones, could this actually work?

[The new fish on the block]

Hi all,

I was doing some brain storming while at work today, and thought of a possible way to treat sick anemones without the use of antibiotics. Would this work?

My idea consists of utilizing a hospital tank setup the same as if you were going to treat with antibiotics ( light, powerhead, heater), however in addition a UV sterilizer is added (probably a little bit over sized) and ran constantly instead of using antibiotics.

My thought behind this is that, as I have seen mentioned on another thread, Anemones in the wild have the advantage of dilution when it comes to expelling bad bacteria, It gets flushed away and replaced with "clean" water. After consulting a couple of studies, It seems (to me at least), that UV sterilization has an effect of both Gram-Positive and Gram- Negative bacteria, so with all of that being said, could a uv sterilizer be used to intake water with bad bacteria, and output clean(er) water? Thus treating bacterial infections in Nems? This would be in conjunction with daily water changes as well.


I know several are more knowledgeable about this topic than I am, so I just wanted to see If this could work. Please let me know your thoughts and Happy Reef Keeping!

 

[kvansloo]

Sounds like it would work. LOL
The problem is most UV filters will not work on everything you would have to identify the exact infection and figure out the cycle time through the UV filter and have the right dwell time. In my opinion it would be better in this case to treat with meds.

 

[D-Nak]

For this to work, there are a lot of things that have to go right. I'm a bit doubtful that this will work. Here's why:

1. The UV has to be properly rated to kill the pathogen.
2. The rate at which the water passes through needs to be properly achieved in order to kill the pathogen (as previously stated by @kvansloo).
3. The flow based on that rate might be too much for the tank size, and the anemone could get too much flow, which could stress it.
4. The rate at which the pathogen reproduces must be less than the rate at which the UV kills it.
5. The anemone needs to be constantly replacing water for this to be effective, and we don't know the frequency by which an anemone does this. The benefit of antibiotics is that once it's added to the QT, the anemone only needs to ingest it once for it to start working. The assumption is also that the anemone "gets better" by constantly getting more antibiotics. Which leads to...
6. Just getting clean water may not cure a sick anemone quick enough to keep it alive.
7. We don't know where the pathogen lives and how it infected the anemone. Is it in the water column, or does it only attack the anemone internally? In other words, just providing clean water may do nothing if the pathogen only resides within the anemone and stays there, only leaving if the anemone has the ability to expel it.
8. The assumption is that the anemone became infected somewhere along the supply chain, and could be compounded by the natural die off of zooxanthellae. This may cause the anemone's immune system to suffer and the pathogen then has the ability to attack it (sometimes of use the example of ich, where many healthy fish have the ability to fight it off, while others that become stressed within the supply chain become more susceptible and die).
   

In short, to answer your questions, my answer is yes and no....

Could a uv sterilizer be used to intake water with bad bacteria, and output clean(er) water?
YES, if properly sized. Technically, this is what they're supposed to do.

Thus treating bacterial infections in Nems?
NO, probably not. There are too many variables and unknowns.