Plumbing a UV with no sump

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Tropical Joe

Tropical Joe

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 12, 2014
148
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Queens NY
I am thinking about plumbing a UV with no sump. The UV would be a 40 watt Emperor Aquatics. If I used a overflow box for gravity to feed the intake into the UV and then used a return pump from the UV back to the aquarium will this work ? Off corse I would put true union valves on each side. This is a 180 build using 2 Eheim canister filters. I really don't want to cut the return of a Eheim and place the UV inline because there would be no flow control. I don't want to put a valve on a Eheim to turn down flow. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
 
I would just tee off of one of the filters and run the uv sterilizer parallel to the return line and then tee it back into the line. Install a valve so you can slow down the uv sterilizer flow without slowing down the filter return flow.
 
You could but not recommended.
Overflow boxes generate lots of bubbles and water is sometimes not prefiltered. This affects the % transmittance. The more particles or bubbles for the pathogen to hide behind the less effective the UV is. Also you will have lots of junk trapped in the chamber.
Most if not all UVs are designed pressurized with the pump pushing water into it. Your proposed reverse method is creating a negative pressure. One thing to consider is if the seals will perform properly.
Your UV size is more than adequate for stage II. This means you need not turn down the flow. I would recommend running one of your canister filter with no valve on the UV.
 
millerkid519 millerkid519

This sounds like a fun project. Probably a few ways to do it. Hide a pump behind some driftwood or something in the tank?
 
Cheap power head with low gph that has a foam intake filter. Plumb that to the UV. You can make a bracket that holds the UV on the back/side of tank or just use the top frame braces to set the UV on. Typicaly there is three openings on tanks over 125. Put the power head on far left side of the tank and run plumbing out of the far left rear opening. Set UV on center section. Run return into far right rear opening. Hope that makes sense. Good luck!
 
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Personally I would build it as a hang on back uv sterilizer with the pump hidden inside as D davenmandy said that would be the best and easiest to do as you can buy the exact gph pump that you need. I actually have the same uv sitting here that I have been waiting to mount on my sump.... I dunno why I never thought of mounting it on the tank
 
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Red_Man said:
Cheap power head with low gph that has a foam intake filter. Plumb that to the UV. You can make a bracket that holds the UV on the back/side of tank or just use the top frame braces to set the UV on. Typicaly there is three openings on tanks over 125. Put the power head on far left side of the tank and run plumbing out of the far left rear opening. Set UV on center section. Run return into far right rear opening. Hope that makes sense. Good luck!
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You would use a cheap powerhead on a piece of equipment that will cost more than a case of power heads?
 
rodger said:
You would use a cheap powerhead on a piece of equipment that will cost more than a case of power heads?
Click to expand...

Would you be weary about non vital functions like a uv? I could see it being a problem if they will burn themselves out, which they very well may.
 
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