De-Bary UV Sterilizer

[TW]

Wondering if anyone has experience with these UV's? I've been told you have to open UV's up on a monthly basis to clean the inside, or the light loses effectiveness. How hard is it to clean. If you connect the system inline with a cannister filter - do you have to take the hoses off for cleaning & if so, wouldn't this mean water everywhere?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[ILLUSN]

I clean mine every month or 2 when i clean the filter hoses, depending on the filteryou can force the water back through the hoses and then clen the wole lot up together, i've never had any serious alga build up, just a bit of brown algae, i can see that not doing it would lead to reduced effectiveness

[Davo]

I ran my De-Bary for over 12 mths and when I changed the tube the glass sleeve was still clean so I don't think you need to clean it every month.

Dave.

[TW]

Thanks guys. I'm still confused about how you clean it anyway, without getting water all over the place. The Out hose connects to UV just by slipping the tube over the projecting pipe from the UV & then the same thing on the other end of the UV the tube then goes into the tank. Doesn't seem like there are neat little connectors or anything to make removal of the tube each time a smooth easy operation & won't water just spill out when you take the tubes off. I guess you have to remove while all is balanced over a bucket to catch water - but I can still imagine missing the bucket & spills & what not.

How is it managed. I'm not very experienced with cannister filters either. I just set up my first (Eheim Pro 2224).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Proteus]

If the UV is located after the filter (which should always be the case) there should be no need to clean the quartz sleeve more often than once or twice a year, if that.

I would say if you are having problems with a UV sleeve getting build up on it your filter is not working correctly.

[ILLUSN]

thants Proteus, still having trouble with by pass on the aquis 2400, brown stuff could just be mulm, though it felt like diatoms, after 2 weeks the top basket is full of crap again (while the bottom 3 are clean), will hook it up to the eheim pro 3 and see how it goes.

[ILLUSN]

to clean it without getting water everyware just turn off the filter, dissconnect the hoses (one at a time) keep your thumb over the open hose and drain all the water back into the tank, then when your ready to go again, just reconnect the output hose reprime (ie suck hard) and your away, no mess.

[TW]

Hi all, thanks for the replies and great advice.
I would say if you are having problems with a UV sleeve getting build up on it your filter is not working correctly Before I bought the UV, some people told me I had to clean it monthly. I think the instructions say monthly (or at least regularly), but if not needed, I'm all for cutting out unnecessary work. It's only newly installed, so hasn't needed a clean yet. The UV is placed after the filter, so only clean water passes through it.

When it does come time to clean it, the hose fits so tightly over the UV fitting, that I don't think I'll be able to remove it in a smooth movement - more like a jerky yank. My previous tanks were all Aqua Ones, so I'm a newby with cannisters, hoses & hose joining parts. Can I get some some sort of easy on/off hose joining thingy that would slip over the UV pipe & make the whole operation smoother? Thanks in advance.

[ILLUSN]

i use an old set of eheim double taps, but its a very expensive way to do it.

[TW]

Thanks for the tip

[Roy]

I clean my UV once every 6 months, pull all the filter system apart at that time and do a mass clean.
Mind you the UV has never been what i would call dirty.

Roy