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With my 420 and my constant additions of livestock... I'm up to 12 tangs and they are of course susceptible to ich. I am in the ich management side of things as its something that I've always been able to successfully manage with UV and heavy feedings when an outbreak occurs. I've never even resorted to metro and focus but I always have it on hand in case... With the addition of so much livestock though I do of course have more of a chance of ich popping up. I always get flare ups with any new addition but it settles down shortly thereafter. This time though I actually want to be more proactive and try to help eliminate ich where they live...
So I do have a 80 watt uv already on my system but that's in the shared sump of my 800 gallon system. Even though the tank is barebottom and the flow is insane with 4 mp60s, 2 crossflows, and a 6000gph return pump... ich can and will grow in any tank and proliferate. Ich in my experience will rarely kill a fish so long as they are all healthy and then it comes to an equilibrium point where you only see the occasional spot. I don't want to take that chance though and want to zap the ich in the display itself which is the main issue.
So my thought is to put in an in tank sterilizer. They do make these out there commercially but they are all super weak in terms of watts and are really meant more so for those planted tanks that have algae blooms so they can put in periodically when its needed. What I'm using is an unshielded submersible 60 watt UV, acrylic tube for housing, a thick ptfe plate liner for the tubing to bounce the UV around in the tube, a simple but dependable italian maxijet to pump in water, and I'm making endcaps with one of my 3d printers out of abs or petg. I've got everything I need other than the ptfe which is on the way... All parts in total have only cost me 124 which is pretty good.
I'll get some pics up later but the idea is to use this when an outbreak occurs as you can't always rely on the overflow to help you get ich to your UV. The stuff likes to stay near the bottom of the tank as that's where the fishies are at night and I want to kill them where they like to live
. If this works well I'll make it available to ARC in our emergency package for supporting members. Wish me luck.
So I do have a 80 watt uv already on my system but that's in the shared sump of my 800 gallon system. Even though the tank is barebottom and the flow is insane with 4 mp60s, 2 crossflows, and a 6000gph return pump... ich can and will grow in any tank and proliferate. Ich in my experience will rarely kill a fish so long as they are all healthy and then it comes to an equilibrium point where you only see the occasional spot. I don't want to take that chance though and want to zap the ich in the display itself which is the main issue.
So my thought is to put in an in tank sterilizer. They do make these out there commercially but they are all super weak in terms of watts and are really meant more so for those planted tanks that have algae blooms so they can put in periodically when its needed. What I'm using is an unshielded submersible 60 watt UV, acrylic tube for housing, a thick ptfe plate liner for the tubing to bounce the UV around in the tube, a simple but dependable italian maxijet to pump in water, and I'm making endcaps with one of my 3d printers out of abs or petg. I've got everything I need other than the ptfe which is on the way... All parts in total have only cost me 124 which is pretty good.
I'll get some pics up later but the idea is to use this when an outbreak occurs as you can't always rely on the overflow to help you get ich to your UV. The stuff likes to stay near the bottom of the tank as that's where the fishies are at night and I want to kill them where they like to live
. If this works well I'll make it available to ARC in our emergency package for supporting members. Wish me luck. 
