UV mounting

[blueoverbrown]

I plan on picking up a Marinier M180 when the Black Friday sales come around this year. I've battled several hours of dinos in my 55 Gallon tank and I consider UV to be indispensable.

I'm excited for a new tank and I'm starting to plan it out in my head. One thing I'm hung up on is where to stick the UV in this cabinet. The one I plan on buying is 20 inches long, which is a little longer than the space between the top of the sump and top of the cabinet. Should I just stick it in the electronics cabinet? Id really like to do this without a separate pump if at all possible. Please feel free to mark up the picture I attached.

Bonus question, the cabinet is marine grade plywood, which seems very beefy but I'm afraid to put screws into it to mount stuff. Any suggestions for a solution?

 

[winxp_man]

Here is how it did mine. I had to run the pipes higher than the uv units. And not a single issue.

You will have to do some customizing to the piping.

 

[landlubber]

Not to be the bearer of bad news but if you haven't determined which strain of dinos you have, you should definitely consider it as not all of them are solved by simply adding UV.

 

[blueoverbrown]

It started with ostreopsis. Which seems to come back when I stop running UV or if the bulb gets old. I also have what I think is LCA, which no amount of silicone dosing or nutrient adding seems to completely resolve. I can live with a little rust color on the sand bed but the ostreopsis plague is a no go.

Not to be the bearer of bad news but if you haven't determined which strain of dinos you have, you should definitely consider it as not all of them are solved by simply adding UV

 

[blueoverbrown]

Here is how it did mine. I had to run the pipes higher than the uv units. And not a single issue.

You will have to do some customizing to the piping.

Just curious, why did you go with two separate UV units? For more power? Also, is that a check valve coming off your pump? Any issues with clogging? I'm trying to get myself as educated as possible before going into this.

 

[winxp_man]

Just curious, why did you go with two separate UV units? For more power? Also, is that a check valve coming off your pump? Any issues with clogging? I'm trying to get myself as educated as possible before going into this.

So the system is a 300. Thus the need to go a bit higher on watts (these are two 57wt systems). The other reason is I have two drain towers and I didn’t have a way to install dual 114wt system so this was it to also help keep air pockets out of the return system.

The check valve has been solid so far. As long as you keep the return pump area clean you will not get much going in there. Running a RS Reefmat 1200 so I don’t get big debris that going into the CV. It’s also clear and you can see if anything is of an issue and comes setup with two unions in each end for easy change.

 

[Privateye]

Also be sure to remember that most UV sterilizers need to be able to evacuate air in order to protect themselves from their own light. In a horizontal orientation, at least the outlet needs to be facing up. In a vertical orientation the inlet needs to be on the bottom and the outlet needs to be on top. Failure to do so can void a warranty for the vessel. It can also reduce your UV dose.

There are some exceptions like the Coralife Turbotwist. I'm not recommending it, just stating that port orientation doesn't matter for some designs.