UV light for cleaning green aquarium

UV light for cleaning green aquarium

In my previous video I shared with you how overfeeding your fish cause green algae bloom.

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Green algae left as it is in my aquarium at this point is unstoppable even if I reduce feeding.

It could take a couple months for water to get clear as it should without me doing water changes.

A dear price I have to pay for this experiment!

It is an opportunity to test UV light against green algae!

I pick the cheapest 3W UV light bulb on Amazon for a spin.

3W is very low power for UV light bulb, or any bulb for that matter.

Nothing fancy about this particular UV light bulb.

It comes with a power switch and a rubber suction cup for the bulb.

And there is a manual... of cause.

Prolong exposure to UV light is harmful to all living organisms - that is something to remember!

The electrical part of this bulb is wrapped in some easy to pull off rubber.

Okay, let's turn it on to check if it's operational.

Your eyes may get hurt if exposed to UV light - get away from the screen for while!

Neon-blue light is dangerous to fish, plants and everything alive in the aquarium too.

For this reason the source of UV light usually is placed inside of a filter or a box through which algae rich water flows.

I have to build a box for this UV light bulb and hook it up to a water pump for water flow.

My Hugger submersible water pump shown in a previous video comes with a couple adapters.

The tube I have here fits on one of the adapters.

Let's cut the tube to make it shorter.

I want to put the UV bulb inside of this not see through plastic bottle - no light will gets through it!

Let's cut a hole in the bottle cup to fit the tube attached to the water pump.

Make sure the tube fits firmly into the hole.

I am going to hang up the bottle upside-down in the aquarium.

I trim the tube to make it long enough to fit the height of my aquarium.

Connect both parts of the tube with a plastic connector.

I am making a temporary setup just to test the effect of UV light on algae.

After this experiment I have no plans of using UV lights in my aquariums.

Now, let's cut a hole in the bottom of the bottle to fit the UV light bulb in.

Make sure the bulb fits firmly and make some cuts for water to flow out of the bottle.

Let's do a dry test.

The bottle blocks the UV light pretty good - no harm should come to me and my fish.

Here I already hook it all up to the pump in the aquarium.

I want to have algae in the bottle to have more exposure to the UV light.

So, I set the water pump on a lower water flow.

Let's turn on the UV light and the pump.

You can see water is flowing from the top holes of the bottle.

The only way you and my fish may notice neon-blue UV light is by looking from the top :)

This way only algae and bacteria in the water flowing through the bottle gets exposed to UV light.

All is set and ready on November 19th, 2023.

I am going to leave the UV light and the pump on.

That is how the UV light shines from the bottle in the dark at night.

Six days later on November 25th, the water is still green.

It's actually looks a bit greener to me than a week ago.

I got a two times larger size bottle.

Let's fix it instead of the small bottle.

Larger bottle provides more algae to be exposed to the UV light at the same time.

And I increased slightly the water flow.

More water goes through the bottle now at the same time.

November 29th.

Ten days from initial setup the water looks cleaner!

The water in the aquarium is crystal clear on December 3rd.

I already removed the UV light bulb from the aquarium.

It took two weeks for a lower power UV light bulb to clean my algae green aquarium.

One month later the water is crystal clear without me changing the water.

The UV light works!

Though again, I have no plans or need to use UV lights, or do water changes or use filters.

Here is an example of about 3-4 years old 1.5 liter aquarium with fish, critters, plants and algae.

No water changes, no filters, no algae blooms - ever.

Beautiful aquarium without any tech.

And so I've done with many other aquariums including this 30 gallon tank.

There is no secret - I have it all explained in my videos and mentioned many times in comments.

Go easier on feeding your pets, your fish.

Overfeeding is the main cause of algae blooms and all other problems in aquariums.

Keep overfeeding and algae would come back no matter how often you change water or use UV lights.

I feed my fish 3 times a week in addition to all the live food fish finds in my aquarium.

Have fun and happy aquariums :)