What's the best UV on the market now?

[mmotown]

Thinking about buying a UV for my 150. Just want to know of a good UV that's not difficult to use and have leakage problems.

[Bebo77]

ozone is better than UV..


but if you want to run UV its all about watts...

[jmack]

I just bought the Aquamedic 55 watt UV for my 120 gallon..it is BIG! But it's very easy to assemble and seems solidly built. I had a gamma but it has multiple joints that leaked on me. This one seems to be pretty much one piece except for your hose connections which you should reinforce with hose clamps.

[mmotown]

So what exactly is ozone?

[BreadmanMike]

Originally posted by Bebo77
ozone is better than UV..


but if you want to run UV its all about watts...

disagree...

Aqua UV is about as good as it gets, but they are pricey. For your 150 I'd go with a 40w.

[ordy1]

Originally posted by Bebo77
ozone is better than UV..


but if you want to run UV its all about watts...

I agree.

Ozone setup is a lot more complicated than UV. My bud uses ozone and his tank is crystal clear. But he has to run an air pump through an air dryer, through the ozone generator, through a reactor (doesn't believe in running it through a skimmer), from the reactor the ozonated water goes through a Lifeguard chemical module filled with carbon, and then it's sent to his sump. This is controlled by a Octopus 2000 controller that maintains orp at around 375mv; 400 is the holy grail. He replaces his orp probe every 8 months, at about $55.00 each time, which is the interval to replace a UV bulb at about $45.00 for a 25 watt bulb. Ozone kills everything so it has to be monitored. That's why he runs it through carbon once it's out of the reactor.

With a UV you plug it in, run water through it, and Voila! Instant gratification. It won't get everything in your tank. Running the right gph and insuring the right zap dosages UV may be able to kill about 98% of the pathogens in your tank. It's a lot of math though. I use UV. A lot simpler but Ozone is a lot better.

Ordy

[mushnmeesh]

I don't want to hijack the thread, but I figure you would know, I just got a 25w UV, it's a Lifegard Aqua step, I have a 90 gal mixed reef, what size pump should I get, how many gph??

Thanks

[ordy1]

Originally posted by mushnmeesh
I don't want to hijack the thread, but I figure you would know, I just got a 25w UV, it's a Lifegard Aqua step, I have a 90 gal mixed reef, what size pump should I get, how many gph??

Thanks

I got this from a Aquarium Fish article printed in 1993. The person who developed the formula is Pete Escobal, an engineering graduate from NYU and UCLA: Flow rate formula for UV sterilizer:

D(new)= D(at 500 gph) x 500/ New flow rate.

50,000 = 6,512(zap dosage for a 25 watt, 3" diameter UV bulb) X 500/S
or the new flow rate would be
S = 6512/50,000 X 500 = 65.12 gph.

For how many hours should the sterilzer run?

T = aG/S Where

T = hours of sterilization required (hrs)
G = gallons in tank (net gallons)
S = Sterilization flow rate (gals/hr)
a = purity coefficient (usually a = 9.2 because we assume that 100 percent of the water will never be sterilized. 9.2 is a good compromise and it implies that in a 100 gallon tank only 1.28 ounces of water will elude sterilization.)

So: T = aG/S

= 9.2 X 90/63 = 13.14 hrs.

That's the time that it will take to cycle the entire tank through the sterilizer. You could put the UV on a timer and cycle it on and off every 13.5 hours. According to the author your Uv light bulb will last longer than six months.

Hope this helped.

Ordy

[mushnmeesh]

So your saying I should run my uv in a pump that is 100gph and leave it on for 13.5 hours a day?
Just want to make sure that I do this right.

Thanks Alot for the info, (Although I didn;t really understand it it sounds good)

[ordy1]

according to the article the flow rate takes into account the dwell time (time needed for organism to be irradiated by UV rays and cause change in metabolism), Zap dosage(expressed in micro volts/cm2(squared), and the purity coefficient which takes into account the clarity of the water.

For your particular 25 watt sterilizer it saids to run 65.12 gph if you want a zap dosage of 6512 mV/cm2(squared) Good enough to kill most things that are irradiated by your sterilizer. If you increase the flow rate give or take 40 gph, to 100gph, you should still be irradicating most anything that flows close to the UV rays. I'd suggest an eheim 1046 (79 gph). You could go with a bigger pump but you'd have to throttle back abit on the discharge line. If you don't, everything flows by too fast for the UV bulb to cause any real damage.

The other formula takes into account the amount of water to be sterilized, the flow rate, and the size of the sterilizer and gives you the amount of time to process your entire tank, give or take 2 gallons of water, through the sterilzer.

Does all this crap work? I'm hoping it does. Like I said, I got this from a magazine, the guy who wrote it was an engineer, and it made sense to me.

Hope this cleared it up for you.

Ordy

[mmotown]

I will look into the Aqua UV. Don't need anything else complicated on my tank. Thanks for the replies.

[Bebo77]

Originally posted by Aquaticman74
disagree...

Aqua UV is about as good as it gets, but they are pricey. For your 150 I'd go with a 40w.

they both increase your orp... UV is not as effecient as ozone cince only the water that passes through it is affected.. compared to Ozone that affects all the tanks water via a skimmer...

what is it that you are trying to do...?

[dippin61]

the question really is, why do you feel you need UV.

IMO UV on most applications is just a gimmic sale...

sure UV can be helpful in certain situations, but IMO for a main display its just a waste of money. to get benefit, youd have to push a lot more water by it, then most do, then the issue arises, what else are you killing in the process....

best place for UV is on QT tanks... IMO.

[BreadmanMike]

Originally posted by dippin61
the question really is, why do you feel you need UV.

IMO UV on most applications is just a gimmic sale...

sure UV can be helpful in certain situations, but IMO for a main display its just a waste of money. to get benefit, youd have to push a lot more water by it, then most do, then the issue arises, what else are you killing in the process....

best place for UV is on QT tanks... IMO.

I always like to send UV doubters to this thread.

I realize the discussion at hand is SPS tanks, but the opinions are from peple I respect.

[mushnmeesh]

Thanks Guys for all the help, I hope to get mine hooked up tommorrow.

[ordy1]

Originally posted by mushnmeesh
Thanks Guys for all the help, I hope to get mine hooked up tommorrow.

Mushnmeesh: The author of the article did mention that the flow rates given by manufacturers of UV sterilizer's are a little bit bloated at best. They give the maximum gph for a certain sized bulb but don't take into account what it is specifically that you want to zap. Differant organisms need differant zap dosages and dwell times. The gph for a 25 watt uv bulb, that I used as an example, does seem rather slow but that gph ensures that you're mutating more than bacteria. Protozoa, mold, viruses, and various other pathogens need differant flow rates. If you decrease the flow rate you increase the dwell time; more things will get zapped and you'll have less pathogens in your tank.

I've been in the hobby for many moons and I always get a kick at the naysayers when the topic of UV sterilization pops up. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places but the majority of articles I read on the subject and the majority of folks in the hobby I've spoken with all say that it is beneficial to the well being of any aquatic environment.

I still think it helps.

Ordy

[Treg]

Originally posted by Aquaticman74
I always like to send UV doubters to this thread.

I realize the discussion at hand is SPS tanks, but the opinions are from peple I respect.

I miss Bomber. I always liked reading his smart elic replies.



I just recently added UV to my system.
Had thought about it for awile and then had a small ick outbrake so I went for it. I noticed a little water clarity improvement but my water was pretty clear to start with...

Would anyone care to give me a second opinion on how I have this setup?
Its a 57w Aqua UV.
Fed thru the input of my return pump from the basement sump to the display upstairs. About 500-600 gph.
Actual total water volume is around 180g. Soon to be about 300g.

[moonpod]

Treg unless I'm seeing the plumbing wrong that would seem to be to fast of a flow rate through the unit. I realize its a basement setup but really only 5-600? I would use that equation from escobal to figure out good flow rates b/c it is all about dwell time.
Anyways 2 points: aqua uvs are nice and ozone does not need to be set up in the super paranoid manner noted above

[Treg]

Yep, only 5-600 gph. I have to big of pump for what it is actually doing...
You can see here how far the ball valves are closed down.
The origonal idea was for this middle section to be a frag tank and the line from the return pump going to that middle section was going to the flow for the frags... I've since changed my mind and made it a refugium. So that line is getting almost no flow. It was feeding some extra equipment but is now only feeding a calcium reactor.

So the 5-600 gph is too much for a UV?

[BreadmanMike]

Yeah Treg, Bomber was definitely a character.

Oh and you're sump setup is nicer then many of our display tanks!

[triggerfish1976]

Originally posted by moonpod
ozone does not need to be set up in the super paranoid manner noted above

I agree. I run an air pump through my ozonizer then to the skimmer's venturi. The water from the skimmer then empties out into a basket full of carbon. I have been running this setup for over two years and it works great.

[mmotown]

No one has told me what's the better UV

[BreadmanMike]

Originally posted by mmotown
No one has told me what's the better UV

I did.

Aqua UV is about as good as it gets, but they are pricey. For your 150 I'd go with a 40w.

[mmotown]

Originally posted by Aquaticman74
I did.

Thanks....Even though Emperior had a comparison with the AUqa on their website and showed that they had the better uv?

[BreadmanMike]

I could swear Emperor bought out Aqua....