UV?

Breakthecycle2 · May 13, 2015

Alright guys, looking for a UV sterilizer recommendation. My tank is 240 total volume. I dont have a ton of space under the cabinet, but 4 foot (under is ideal), should work.

brandon429 · May 13, 2015

my advice is to buy the largest that will physically fit in there and your budget, in my opinion someone can't recommend uv off what works for them due to tank variables, but gross overshooting sure does cover the bases. i love them. my gross overshoot was my grandmothers old pond array, 4 tubes w flowthrough and 4 bulbs for a 10K gallon pond, on a 75 gallon tank. beating cyano was a cinch and i didnt have to adjust anything, im sure a correctly sized unit might have worked, or legit cyano controls, but this one dang sure worked. uv=go big or take a risk of wasting money. whatever is burnt w oversized uv doesnt matter, skimmers remove too. we replace routinely that which is burned off by skimmers, and in the process hopefully some invaders were burnt too.

luke33 · May 13, 2015

I would get a nice emperor or aqua uv. I have a 45w aqua uv on my 180g display. Just don't skimp on a cheap ebay unit as they don't have the power like the good units do. After running one for a while i'll never have a tank without one again.

d2mini · May 13, 2015

If you are going to get UV, look at Emperor Aquatics or AquaUV. I went with the latter because I heard its easier to get parts.
Both are top notch choices.
But to choose size, go to their respective websites and look at the flow specs for a reef tank.
You can't just get the biggest, because if it's too big/strong you'll end up in max kill mode, killing everything beneficial along with the bad.

luke33 · May 13, 2015

IMO if your powerful enough to kill parasites your powerful enough to kill any beneficial. I run mine at 400k W/sec cm2 which is high enough to zap parasites that go through it. Any beneficial bacteria or phyto it kills is fine with me. Most bacteria is in your substrate and rock so it shouldn't be a big deal, also dead phyto can still be eaten for a period.

d2mini · May 13, 2015

Direct from the AquaUV site..."In salt water reef environments choose a UV that matches your flow rate per hour in the 30,000 or 45,000 columns of our chart. Flow rates in the 75,000 and 90,000 columns will destroy the planktonic food supply for the reef."
http://www.aquaultraviolet.com/products/uvsterilizers/classic/80watt

I saw a decline in some of my sps color when running to low of a flow through it.

Every Day ReefEvery Day Reef & Photo

brandon429 · May 13, 2015

curious as to what escapes through that is beneficial from a correctly sized unit, i wasnt planning on planktors surviving repeated runs through the emperor which agreed is a nice brand

i was oversized 10K/75 gallons with only pure benefit. by going oversized, you hedge against invasive dinoflagellates. who says you have to run them 24x7 as well, the key is having horsepower when needed at a critical moment, the risk of undersizing is to have a unit with no extra top end and that may not help you when the chips are down...my reco came from use of oversized gear for yrs, there is no limit that you can use hobby uv's and detect negative outcomes from the tank inhabitants, i get more critical after working on wrecked dino tank threads because this extra kick would have been powerful to have in place.

the tanks we installed grossly oversized UV had excellent dino outcomes as well. we took the works sometimes/doesnt work outcome of dinos+uv search threads and pushed them into yes it worked just by oversizing.

d2mini · May 13, 2015

brandon429 said:
curious as to what escapes through that is beneficial from a correctly sized unit, i wasnt planning on planktors surviving repeated runs through the emperor which agreed is a nice brand

i was oversized 10K/75 gallons with only pure benefit. by going oversized, you hedge against invasive dinoflagellates. who says you have to run them 24x7 as well, the key is having horsepower when needed at a critical moment, currently you are being advised to have a unit with no extra top end and that may or may not help you when the chips are down...my reco came from use of oversized gear for yrs.

You can slow down your flow through it if you need to go max kill.
I'm running mine for a few hours a day but the on/off shortens the bulb life. From what I hear. So that's an option too, just FYI.

brandon429 · May 13, 2015

nice call

Breakthecycle2 · May 13, 2015

Emperor has a 40W thats only 23" long but is like $650.

Breakthecycle2 · May 13, 2015

Breakthecycle2 said:
Emperor has a 40W thats only 23" long but is like $650.

Actually never mind this one, it has 2" inlets and outlets.

So what do you think of this one?

Aqua UV Ultraviolet Sterilizer

luke33 · May 14, 2015

d2mini said:
Direct from the AquaUV site..."In salt water reef environments choose a UV that matches your flow rate per hour in the 30,000 or 45,000 columns of our chart. Flow rates in the 75,000 and 90,000 columns will destroy the planktonic food supply for the reef."
http://www.aquaultraviolet.com/products/uvsterilizers/classic/80watt

I saw a decline in some of my sps color when running to low of a flow through it.

Every Day ReefEvery Day Reef & Photo

Yes but if you only run your UV at this rate its purely for destroying algae in the water column. Most are targeting parasites, bad bacteria, virus...etc which need 180-360k in order to sterilize. If all your after is algae in your water column you can pick up a cheapo unit on ebay.

luke33 · May 14, 2015

Breakthecycle2 said:
Actually never mind this one, it has 2" inlets and outlets.

So what do you think of this one?

Aqua UV Ultraviolet Sterilizer

If you are asking about the 3/4" units I'm sure they will do you just fine. I would go with a 40w or higher.

d2mini · May 14, 2015

luke33 said:
Yes but if you only run your UV at this rate its purely for destroying algae in the water column. Most are targeting parasites, bad bacteria, virus...etc which need 180-360k in order to sterilize. If all your after is algae in your water column you can pick up a cheapo unit on ebay.

Understood. Clearer water is my personal goal.

But wouldn't it be better to have options?
I plumbed mine in to my system with a bypass using true union ball valves which serve a couple functions.
1) I can remove the uv completely at any time and not have to shut down the tank.
2) I can choose to send only some of my flow through the UV essentially slowing it down to kill parasites.
Of course this would take longer to be effective since not all the water is going through the UV but at least it's an option.

I thought I was going to always be doing option #2 but due to underestimating how much friction loss I would have, my flow is so low that it's still not enough to be AquaUV's suggested reef tank range which is why I'm currently running it on and off.
What I need is a flow meter to know for sure. It's really hard to guesstimate when you have so many tanks hooked up to the same return pump like I do.

luke33 · May 14, 2015

Sounds like a nice setup d2mini! I have mine as an add on so I can remove as well. I use a DC pump to control the flow through, this way I have control as far as pumping 250gph or 1000gph through it. To combat the beneficial kill off I run an oversized skimmer and feed heavy : )

But yea, its going to be very difficult to have all water go through the UV

d2mini · May 14, 2015

luke33 said:
Sounds like a nice setup d2mini! I have mine as an add on so I can remove as well. I use a DC pump to control the flow through, this way I have control as far as pumping 250gph or 1000gph through it. To combat the beneficial kill off I run an oversized skimmer and feed heavy : )

But yea, its going to be very difficult to have all water go through the UV

Ya, i probably should have got it on a separate pump but I was trying to keep things simple. lol
Right now all my water goes through the UV, i just need more of it going through the UV. I think I'm somewhere between 2,000-2400 gph.
My system pump is a Hammerhead Gold which has a max output around 6,000 gph. That's how much friction loss (and 6' head height) I have and using mostly 1.5" plumbing. :shocked:

Breakthecycle2 · May 14, 2015

How much of the 6000 gph do you use for flow?

d2mini · May 14, 2015

Breakthecycle2 said:
How much of the 6000 gph do you use for flow?

Using the 2 liter bucket method :lol: I'm estimating around 1400 gph going through my 200g display through two Sea Swirls.
The other 600-1000 gph is going into a 40b frag tank, a 22x22x24 refugium and an 18x18x16 mangrove tank.
Like i said above, the rest seems to be lost in head height and friction through all the plumbing.