uv sterilizer
- Thread starter abominus
- Start date
That question is not as easy to answer as you might think and I'll offer you a few bullet points to ponder and then tell you what I use.
- Asking who makes the best UV sterilizer is a little like asking 'who makes the best table lamp'. The important part is the lamp and they're sized by wattage which only tells you how much the lamp consumes rather than how effective it'll be at sterilizing.
- Light required to fill any cavity is a factor of reflectance and oddly, the low end mfg's of UV sterilizers often use a black plastic housing to hold their lamp. The inner walls of that black plastic housing don't reflect at all meaning that if the tube or housing that the lamp is held in has a reflective inner surface the UV sterilizer will be much more effective.
- I'm guessing you'd like the UV sterilizer to be as effective as possible so you'll want to consider other facets like what you're using for filtration, hose size, how to connect, etc.
- You'll also want to ponder what it is you're actually wanting to address and that involves considering other pond parameters.
- Leave it on 24/7/365 and replace the lamp every Jan 1.
- Install the sterilizer on the return side of your filter as you don't want dirty water going through it.
- Some sites refer to them as UV filters which generally speaking is incorrect; unless they're built into a filter they don't filter anything at all they just kill pathogens by giving them a crazy sunburn.
The least effective UV sterilizer should be sized to combat algae propagation. The more intense the UV light and the slower the water flow through the sterilizer the more likely it is that you'll also be able to kill parasites as well as bacteria, fungal spores and similar nasties.
If you'd like a hand figuring these out in greater detail just holler. I'll help and I'm sure others will, too.
These are what I use:
That depends on how many times you turn the water in your tank and the speed of the water through the sterilizer. How many gallon tank are we talking about?
And yes, here's a pic of the exact same unit inline w/ an FX6:
And yes, here's a pic of the exact same unit inline w/ an FX6: