UV Sterilizer

[bfield02]

OK I have a coarlife 18W uv sterilizer on my 95 gal tank. It is plumbed into one of the two return lines I have. My question is the manufacturer recomends a certain gph flow rate to kill algea or disease i.e. 240gph for algea. Should I install a flow meter on that return line or would that mess things up? I have a corallife 1080gph external pump. I can control the flow rate through a ball valve I have on each retrun line. Thanks for the help. I was told by my LFS that flow rate and uv sterilizers does not matter.

 

[camaroracer214]

the best thing to do is to run the sterilizer on a separate, dedicated pump. it's easier to tell just how much is going into the sterilizer.

btw, your lfs doesn't know what they are talking about if they say that the flow speed doesn't matter.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi

Your LFS is wrong.... Flowrate through the UV is important. Usually there are two ratings, a higher rate for bacteria and a lower rate for parasites. The lower one is the one you want....so you can use the UV to kill any floating Ich.

As for your flow, since you want to keep your flowrate high in you tank (turnover) you really want to put the UV on its own leg. I would take the UV out of the return leg and "T" off off of it using a ball valve to regulate flow back to the sump. Since your there you could put a flowmeter in there as well. But they do and will clog up after some time. Or you could get a magdrive pump, say a model 2 and run it out of your sump and into your tank or back to your sump closer to the main pump suction.

Hope this helps

 

[bfield02]

Thanks for the advice you two. Basically I am getting to take the UV out of the return line and plumb it into the sump seperately with its own pump.
Next question what if I teed of the pump I am using for my skimmer or would that detract from the skimmer to much