Questions about UV lights

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I totally agree with everything you say. However my thought it that it might be hard to exaggerate the truth about a 90,000μw/cm² level of lighting. I believe this level will kill parasites.

I know filter manufactures get by rating pumps with zero head and and empty filter to get higher gph.

But i don't think they can really tweak a UV set up too much to get higher μw/cm² levels.

I'm starting to think of all this like lighting for plants, WPG not meaning much when you start compairing different bulb types. A T-5 bulb is going to but out more killing rays per watt then a PC (Aqua UV verses Twist) So a 1 watt per 10 g.p.h. might be a good safe rought, but if there is a product that might allow for 1 watt per 20 to 25 g.p.h. and still kill parasites that would be a savings between bulb replacement and electrical use.

This product does seem longer then most and given a 2" dia. and t-5 bulb inside it all water is at most 3/4" away from the light.

I have not used a UV yet but i'm doing research so i get the right one in the long run. This seems like the right one to get, but I'm open to suggestions to otherwise.
 
90,000μw/cm² would be the UV-A rating... but UV-C is what we are using for sterilization...

So while a measurement of 90,000μw/cm² may not be manipulatable... the importance of this particular measure seems to be...


I do not wish to detour anyone away from Aqua UV lamps as I've heard good things about them and know nothing to suggest they aren't great sterilizers. But I do believe they are exaggerating the potenital effectiveness of their product.
 
Thank you, i did not even notice this was the rating for UVA and not UVC. Would be interesing to to spectrum charts on the different bulbs. But as mentioned manufactures want there stuff to look better then it it.

Also another not Aqua UV says they test there bulbs at end of life and not start. meaning that these ratings are going to be slightly higher durring some of the life.

As mentioned though also better to stay on the safer side then to push any unit to it max capibilties.
 
No worries. The R&D side of most of these companies do great work to provide a good quality product... it's the marketing teams that ya have to watch out for ;-)

epond83;3928664; said:
well that is good to hear. They say the bulbs are rated for 14 months I think? Is that on continuous use? meaning that if ran 8 hours a day the bulb would last 42 months?
Click to expand...

Just to make sure you caught the point in regards to this...

At the moment of illumination the bulb experiences much more "wear and tear" than the typical moment after illumination. Therefore turning it on might wear it out as much as several hours of continuous use...

It's been suggested to me by people who understand UV light more than I do that 12 hour on / 12 hour off will likely extend the life of the bulb... but 8 on / 8 off will likely shorten the life of the bulb...
 
right i understand the bulb life thing, I'm thinking if you did a 8 on 16 off so you have the same number of on off cycles but cut the run time.

I would probably run it 24 on or 12 on 12 off, this way it would be the exact opposite of the lights. This by the way is for a turtle tank which has little parisites floating around i want to get rid of.
 
uW/cm2 is NOT affected by gph.
Basically, uW/cm2 is the intensity of the light over a certain area (or power density.) For example, if you have a 10w flashlight that you can focus, you could focus it down to 1 square centimeter and have 10w/cm2, or you could widen it out to a 100 square centimeter area and you'd have 10/100 = 0.1w/cm2.

GPH gives you contact time. If your bacteria are whizzing by you might expose them to a flash of the radiation but it wouldn't have enough time to do damage.
 
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