anyone else have a UV sterilizer start to leak

[Mark3]

Water leak, is one of the worst words you can hear when you have an aquarium running.... And sure enough this morning water was leaking.
From unexpected place.... it was the UV sterilizer, housing just split down the side, very poor build I guess ...if it had been out of good PVC pipe it would have lasted for years and years and years.... Instead...only about two and a half years old and it splits open.

 

[Reefing Madness]

 

[Eddie Rogers]

i think i have the same emperor aquatics UV, It decently thick plastic. Did something fall on it?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Crazy!

 

[Metasyntactic]

Yeah, UV is REAL hard on plastics. I imagine that UV filter housing gets real brittle over time.

 

[Mark3]

i think i have the same emperor aquatics UV, It decently thick plastic. Did something fall on it?

No, No, No.... it has been under the tank for about 2 & half years....(new, out of the box)

I thought it was heavy pvc pipe when I got it, it seemed heavy and solid build....but now I see it wasn't. It is a thin wall black tube. Nothing fell on it or bumped it or smashed against it....it just got brittle and split. It is the emperor aquatics 40 watt UV. How long have you had your's ....and do you run your's 24/7 ??

 

[Thomashtom]

Water leak, is one of the worst words you can hear when you have an aquarium running.... And sure enough this morning water was leaking.
From unexpected place.... it was the UV sterilizer, housing just split down the side, very poor build I guess ...if it had been out of good PVC pipe it would have lasted for years and years and years.... Instead...only about two and a half years old and it splits open.

Did you lose flow cause that could cause the bulb to get hot and damage housing.

 

[Eddie Rogers]

I have had mine for a year, I got it used. I do run mine 24/7

 

[Mark3]

Did you lose flow cause that could cause the bulb to get hot and damage housing.

I ran mine 24/7 ...only time flow stops is if power goes down....and then light would be down also....but even then, the housing remains full of water even if flow stops...it is mounted horizontal level, with intake pointing up, no siphon... so, answer is no, never a dry bulb on in housing. ...I will show more photos when I cut it apart, ... I am going to rebuild it.

 

[Mark3]

I noticed that I could see the glow of the UV light through the housing starting about a year or so ago,....could see the water flow through the black tube ....the glow in the photo is the uv light, not a reflection on the tube. Look again, you will see that you can see the UV light through the 3" black plastic tube.

It really is a manufacture defect,....just wondering if they were all built that way, or if I got a bad built product?

Wonder what BRS supply has to say about it? I know empower aquatics is no longer around....so?

Anybody know how to tag BRS supply? I am already working on rebuilding it, so not asking for replacement. I don't think it will be that hard to rebuild with 3" PVC