Uv plumbing

[Izzy’sReefTank]

Have a question on plumbing a UV sterilizer for my waterbox 125.3
Have a Aqua ultraviolet 57watt class now and a syncra sdc 3.0 showing up this week. Throwing around a few ideas on pluming this in my sump for control of parasites, any help or ideas would be appreciated! Thank you in advance.

 

[gbru316]

I plumbed mine parallel to my return, with a valve on both UV and return. Plumbing it in this manner eliminates the need for a separate pump and allows easy tuning of flow rate and removal for maintenance.

 

[exnisstech]

Ideally you would return the outlet of the uv to the display like gbru said. In my case that wasn't possible. My first chamber of my sump is where my socks are and the drains come in. Next chamber is a fuge. Third chamber is my return. What I did was place a pump in the first chamber to feed the uv then exit into the third chamber. A lot depends on how your system is set up. My sump is in the basement so returning all the way back up to the first floor wasn't doable.

 

[Smoke-Town]

Couple things to consider... I use a 40 watt uv and I also use the sicce 3.0... although it is good enough on100 percent power, I really wish I paid another $50 for the 6.0. The pump will likely have to move water through a lot of 3/4-1" tubing and then fill and push through 2-3" pvc uv chambers then return up to your display. Get a bigger pump if you can.. that being said. The 3.0 works well enough but I'd rather a 6.0 at 40 percent with the option to increase gph for algae if I wanted. I'll eventually replace it.

youll want this thing mounted in a way you can actually change the bulb each year without breaking down everything. So if hard plumbing then mount it vertically withat least as much open space above it as the length of the unit.

Or you can do something like I did here with flexible tubing... yes it looks a little ugly with floppy tunes all over the place but this allows me to pull the unit out completely without disconnecting anything so I can easily turn it vertically to replace the bulb.

just realized in the pic below i didnt hook the return line to that hose barb yet that you can plainly see, but thats how it returns. It is definitely worth whatever it takes to make it return to the display on its own line independent from your return pump.

 

[Izzy’sReefTank]

Ideally you would return the outlet of the uv to the display like gbru said. In my case that wasn't possible. My first chamber of my sump is where my socks are and the drains come in. Next chamber is a fuge. Third chamber is my return. What I did was place a pump in the first chamber to feed the uv then exit into the third chamber. A lot depends on how your system is set up. My sump is in the basement so returning all the way back up to the first floor wasn't doable.

My first chamber is narrow and the water from the tank comes in and goes into sock chamber, then to fuge, then skimmer chamber then bubble trap and then return chamber. The sump is in cabinet under tank so I don’t have much of a choice either on returning it back to display. I have manifold port off the return pipe but not sure if I want to run this through it, lots of plumbing would need to be reconfigured for that set up.

 

[Waters]

I prefer to run my UV on separate pumps.....allows you to know the approximate flow going through the unit. Pulls from and returns to the sump.

 

[Smoke-Town]

My first chamber is narrow and the water from the tank comes in and goes into sock chamber, then to fuge, then skimmer chamber then bubble trap and then return chamber. The sump is in cabinet under tank so I don’t have much of a choice either on returning it back to display. I have manifold port off the return pipe but not sure if I want to run this through it, lots of plumbing would need to be reconfigured for that set up.

What about that unnamed chamber on bottom right? I'd use the refugium chamber for the uv pump if I had no other choice tbh.

Also as far as separate return lines go... clear flexible tubing and one of these hooked over the back of the tank would work just fine so long as the hose clamps is super tight

 

[PigDaddyF15E]

Here is what I did. let's me "isolate" the UV section so i can bypass it completely if needed. allows me to adjust the flow rate through the UV and measure the amount going back to the tank.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

all UV setups must consider two things.

1) flow: if you don't get enough flow they'll heat up and crack. if you have too much flow they won't work.


but, more importantly, since everyone knows that, mostly,
2) air bubbles. an air bubble will crack quartz from spot heating suuuuperfast.

all good setups have the exit line ABOVE the quartz bulb for this reason. you can mount it however you want, u shaped |_| or C shaped, but "out" must be "up" or you might be "sad".

thanks for coming to my ted talk.

 

[SPS2020]

This configuration works well for me. Plumbed off of the manifold. Not seen is a gate valve for flow control.

 

[Izzy’sReefTank]

What about that unnamed chamber on bottom right? I'd use the refugium chamber for the uv pump if I had no other choice tbh.

Also as far as separate return lines go... clear flexible tubing and one of these hooked over the back of the tank would work just fine so long as the hose clamps is super tight

That is my freshwater chamber for my ATO