Question about UV Sterilizers

[Joshua Agostoni]

I just purchased the coral life 3x 9 watt uv sterilizer, I have a 55 gallon tank plus about 25 gallon sump so this should work out great for me.. My question lies with the pump... I' wondering if i can cut my return pump hose and just attach it to there, this way the water going through it will have passed though the protein and bio pellet reactor made its way to the refugium and then my sump return will send the water up the hose to the uv sterilizer and then into the tank.

(my return pump cycles about 120 gallons per hour so i'm worried about it breaking the uv sterilizer. )

 

[Crabs McJones]

I just purchased the coral life 3x 9 watt uv sterilizer, I have a 55 gallon tank plus about 25 gallon sump so this should work out great for me.. My question lies with the pump... I' wondering if i can cut my return pump hose and just attach it to there, this way the water going through it will have passed though the protein and bio pellet reactor made its way to the refugium and then my sump return will send the water up the hose to the uv sterilizer and then into the tank.

(my return pump cycles about 120 gallons per hour so i'm worried about it breaking the uv sterilizer. )

Could you put a valve or something in line to the uv sterilizer so that you don't have so much going through it, therefore not breaking it

 

[Waters]

Yes, you can as long as you can regulate the flow, as crabs stated. Parasites or bacteria both require different flow rates for the UV to be useful.

 

[Luno]

Most uv's will say what flow rate is 90% and 99% effective and you aim between those numbers (at least that's what I have done and it's worked for me). In the past and for my future build I have split return into two to allow for 2 chillers and 2 uv's which helps bring flow down to a correct number for both and all water passes through a uv and also aids me for redundancy of failure