UV sterilizer and chiller plumbing

oldkiddo1990

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Hi guys, I’m setting up a new reef tank for my office.
My plan is to connect both a UV sterilizer and a chiller through the manifold system, but the outlets of both devices are routed into the same return line — as shown in the diagram below.
Has anyone here ever installed two devices using a plumbing setup like this? Could it cause any issues? I’d appreciate your advice, thank you!


 
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oldkiddo1990

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20250901_182716_364DDEB7-8C69-414B-8B60-D0BC8EC7FA9C.png
 

kboogie

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I have two concerns with this piping. The first is if you lower the pressure at either device you could experience unexpected back flow.

The second is, ideally all your water will flow through your UV sterilizer with maximum contact time. That provides the greatest effectiveness of the UV sterilizer. I run UV sterilizers as the last item on the return and one per return. I also like to oversize my UV sterilizers so I can have high flow while still damaging protozoans.
 
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oldkiddo1990

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thanks for pointing out some aspects I hadn’t considered. It also seems like no one has actually set up their plumbing this way.
To be able to adjust the flow through the UV sterilizer, the best solution is probably to run a separate outlet line.
 

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