gravity fed u.v.

[orlandito]

ok, i have a aqua uv sterilizer, and i went to home depot and bought me what i needed to make an invetion and it worked,

here is what i did.

i eliminated the pump and conected it in line with the drain line so the water goes through the uv before it reaches the filter pad in the sump

check out my gallery for pics. is the one that says uv sterilizer,but you have to click on it because i don't why in the gallery it shows somethig else

[Ninong]

i eliminated the pump and conected it in line with the drain line so the water goes through the uv before it reaches the filter pad in the sump

I see from your profile that you have a 250-gal tank. You aren't running all of the flow from your drain through your UV are you? You should have it set up as a bypass with a ball valve that allows you to regulate the amount of flow past the lamp. If you want to kill protozoans (e.g., Cryptocaryon irritans), you need to run no more than about 600-800 gph through it. It all you want to do is kill floating microalgae, you could probably run 1500 gph through it.

The kill rate is based on dwell time and dosage. Aqua-Ultraviolet rates their 40w VU for up to 200 gallons of saltwater but they also say that in order to kill off marine ich, you need to restrict the flow to no more than 3 to 5 times the tank volume per hour.

[orlandito]

well absually i have two prefilters (one in each corner)and the uv is conected to one of them ,and yes i do have a ball valve in it to regulate flow

the idea came to me one day when i was looking at the tank and i said to my self,wait a minute ,so much water falling down maybe i could us it for something (eliminate pumps and save electricity)

i did the same thing with my refugium