UV sterilizer setup pics.....

[Joe Schmoe]

A Custom Sealife 9W double-helix sterilizer and a Fluval 404. I raised the sterilizer to prevent the hoses from kinking over time. A few parts took a little imagination, but it was pretty easy overall.


Soon, this will be a distant memory.

[Momotaro]

When the UV kills the algae, the dead algae particles will still be in the water. See if your LFS will rent you a diatomic filter to remove those particles.

Mike

[Wasserpest]

Man this looks so clean :shock: I am such a mess :hehe:

[Joe Schmoe]

You just can't see the floor in the pics . You can see that vacuum in the reflection on the tank.....

[DLeDeaux]

Where's all your stuff?!?! :shock:

[Joe Schmoe]

The way the stand is designed, there are big empty spaces behind the shelves on each side. I put one 404 on each side where you can't see them to save space. (you can also see a difference in clarity...I'm gonna do a water change to speed along the process)


And no, it's not normally that clean 8) ...here it is after the clean-up with all of the crap back in there.

[Ag]

the only problem I see with that is it looks like your using the flow of the filter to drive the sterilizer and thats to much flow for the sterilizer to be effective.

[Joe Schmoe]

Speaking of flow, as you can see in the above pic, like a bonehead I ran the filter with the ball valves closed overnight prior to that pic being taken. I was concerned about flow as well so I was running the filter with the ball valves closed halfway to decrease flow, but when I was done trying that I closed it instead of opening it. No harm no foul.

Either way, I gave it a 50% water change to help things along. Then I noticed the fish breathing harder than normal, so I temporarily added a Emperor 400 and ran it overnight...I woke up to this:


Too much flow or not, that's good enough improvement for me.

Just and FYI, I'm new to plants and I don't know what I can grow hence my lack of arrangement. Once I figure out what grows (aside from the monster Hornwort :shock: ), I'll start arranging things.

[badmatt]

u should ru another filter like use the fluval for bio or mech filtration. and get another filter like an eheim or magnum or another fluval and use it as a flow-through or set up another uv steralizer

[Joe Schmoe]

I have 3 404s, I don't think I need more filtration than that. As it is, it's probably overkill but I like it that way.

[3kgtman]

UV sterilizers, are more efficient when you have less GPM. the longer the water stays in contact with the light the more S*&T it will kill off....


(im sure you knew this) just letting the thread know... haha

i like you tank by the way,
Brian

[lanstar]

For a long term solution to the flow issue, you might consider a second "low flow" filter. That's what I ended up doing. I have the UV sterilizer and the CO2 reactor chamber connected in series on the "low flow" filter with its intake and dischage located near the center of the tank. The other filter runs "wide open" to do most of the work of cleaning the water. However, I'll tell you that the filter material on the low flow filter gets about as dirty about as fast as the filter material on the "wide open" filter does. So both must be doing a decent amount of water cleaning.

Take care...

Tim