# shrimp and UV sterilizer



## MAT (May 6, 2006)

Does anyone have any experience with this... Will using a uv sterilizer starve my shrimp of the small particles he filters from the water?


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## gnatster (Mar 6, 2004)

What kind of shrimp?


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## YuccaPatrol (Mar 26, 2006)

I'm guessing you have the filter feeding Atyopsis mollucensis (the shrimp with too many names).

These shrimp depend on floating living matter (and decaying organic debris) and a UV sterilizer would not be beneficial at all. In general, we want our invert tanks to contain a diverse population of micro-organisms. Even the shrimp that we feed probably eat more micro-organisms than the food we give them."Sterile" is the last thing we want for shrimp tanks.

What is your purpose in having one of these? I can't imagine needing one unless I was a store owner whose tanks were regularly exposed to new shipments of fish that may be carrying diseases. It is so much easier to simply follow a quarrantine protocol before adding new stock to your established tanks.


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## MAT (May 6, 2006)

YuccaPatrol said:


> I'm guessing you have the filter feeding Atyopsis mollucensis (the shrimp with too many names).
> 
> These shrimp depend on floating living matter (and decaying organic debris) and a UV sterilizer would not be beneficial at all. In general, we want our invert tanks to contain a diverse population of micro-organisms. Even the shrimp that we feed probably eat more micro-organisms than the food we give them."Sterile" is the last thing we want for shrimp tanks.
> 
> What is your purpose in having one of these? I can't imagine needing one unless I was a store owner whose tanks were regularly exposed to new shipments of fish that may be carrying diseases. It is so much easier to simply follow a quarrantine protocol before adding new stock to your established tanks.


Yes, that is the type of shrimp I have. I want to use a uv sterilizer because there has been a nasty bug hanging around a long time that has killed several of my fish. Lesson learned on quarantine proceedure before adding new fish, believe me. I think the culprit was a sick little angel who seemed to have a rotted fin. He died a few days after I got him. I tried increasing my water change frequency and adding salt with the changes. I did many tests on my water and the water quality has always tested very well. After that, the fish seemed to get sick one or two at a time. After two of them died I tried putting The third and later the fourth in a hospital tank and treating with meds to no avail. I purchased a hang on uv sterilizer so that I could use it temporarily with ease. It should arrive next week. Do you think I could use it for a few days without harming the shrimp?


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## YuccaPatrol (Mar 26, 2006)

You could definitely use it temporarily. I supplement my filter shrimp's food by grinding into a fine powder some frozen brine shrimp cubes and high quality flake food.

Just a tiny tiny tiny pinch every few days


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