Coralife Aquarium Fish Tank Marine Salt Water Turbo-Twist UV Sterilizer 12X, For up to 500 Gallons

My son asked me to order the Coralife UV sterilizer for his 180 gallon freshwater tank after he began having a problem with the algae. The water was so green that you could barely see the fish in the aquarium. Our problem is that the aquarium is in an area where it gets a lot of sunlight. Setup: this UV sterilizer is meant to be installed "in-line" with your filtering system. Before you do anything, make sure that you have a good plan as to how you're going to connect this in-line in your system. and the right parts to install this. You'll need whatever size clear tubing you're using as well as metal clamps. You may need to purchase some 45 or 90 degree elbows to make the turns needed to set this up in-line. I purchased the metal clamps from Home Depot for somewhere around $2 each. I also purchased the elbows from Home Depot. It's not obvious at first, but one side of the UV sterilizer is the intake and the other is for the output (look closely at the intake/outputs and you'll see arrows pointing to the direction the water should flow in. You'll need to secure the UV sterilizer somewhere on the aquarium stand. We used one of the brackets to secure it to the UV sterilizer to the inside of the cabinet. Function: once you turn this on, check to make sure there are no leaks. After one to two days, we started to notice that the water was not as green and cloudy as before. After 4-5 days, the water was very clear. It's now been 6 days and the water is almost crystal clear. I would definitely recommend this if you have a problem with cloudy water from algae.

I used this device for approximately 6 months and noticed a difference in my tank. Unfortunately the item broke and an electrical current went through my tank. The company was more than willing to replace the device and I have a new device I’ve been using without issue.

I ordered two of these, and have had to do three warranty returns because of leaking through the top housing. If I could give these zero stars, I would. These are hands down the most expensive pieces of junk I've purchased for my tank which has been running now for over 10 years. The specs are awesome, they do work great at least for a while, but be warned... just like so many other reviewers... they have leakage problems. They leak right through the top housing... some type of molding/manufacturing problem. I'm now up to four leaking units. They all leak internally into the electrical cavity where they short out and then leak externally. I've removed them from service and would never never put them back... time to fill the trash bin. Also the mounting brackets are totally inadequate. If you mount them vertically, they will break - be warned they you will want to secure them with something other than just the supplied brackets

Wow! I recently set up a 400 gal saltwater system with dry rock and have been struggling to keep the water clear. I have been through many bacterial blooms (not your typical Ammonia and Nitrite spikes) and after 8 hours of running this sterilizer, my water is crystal clear! The tank has been set up for over 4 months and has read 0 for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphate since my original cycle with cocktail shrimp. I am running a bio reactor which I am sure contributes to my bacterial load, but all of my fish have been fine and eating normal. I have had days where you couldn't even see 6 inches deep inside the aquarium. The protein skimmer would go nuts pulling out clear smelly liquid, but all of that seems to be over now that this sterilizer is running. I have tried carbon, filter socks, and purigen but the only thing that worked was letting my skimmer just remove it all while continually replacing with new saltwater. Just as it would become clearish looking, another bloom would start and the process would start all over. I got so tired of this that I finally broke down and bought this UV sterilizer and now this problem seems to be solved. Here is a picture from the end. That magnet is 7 feet away!

Fist off, this unit works incredibly well, as expected. I have it connected to my 125 gallon tank and the water has remained so absolutely crystal clear, my snails cry to me every morning. It is rather heavy when filled with water, as I found out just last night. So a couple of nights ago I'd heard this op noise but couldn't find it anywhere . Couldn't figure out the source. Last night..again. Same thing. Well, a couple of hours later I notice water puddles at one end of my tank. Investigating further I see that the 2 "c" brackets that are designed to hold the canister have broken, leaving the canister hanging. Well, looks like the force of the hanging had pulled or twisted the tubes going in and both ends were leaking. So I manage to get back there and can't stop them leaking and have no way now to support the filter where it needs to be. I find a couple of cardboard boxes and that's currently where it sits. On cardboard boxes. Doesn't seem to be leaking but if it moves much at all it starts again. Also doesn't come with it's recommended tubing to connect to. My canister tubing is the same size but not quite the right material so that's been a concern as well. It has been absolutely find up until those clips broke. Not sure exactly now to remount it now But again, otherwise the filter itself is amazing! Solidly built, easy to change out the bulb as well as see if the bulb is lit up. Seller shopped very quickly as well, and was packaged well. No complaints here either.

I like the twist baffle for maximum exposure to uv light, the plumbing design is great for any position, very versatile. My fist one lasted 5 yrs untill I had a pump failure, NO WATER . Got too hot and cracked glass letting water in my fault so I bought another one, not cheep. The new one developed a leak in the housing at the molded seam 13 months later warranty is 12 months just my luck so i contacted customer service any way, they still covered it and sent out a new one ! very relieved and surprised, a good company that stand behind there products * I’m an electrician and familiar with thermal protection for lighting fixtures it would be a nice feature for all brands on UV sterilizers but none do!

I didn't encounter any problems during installation or experience any leakage that a couple of reviewers mentioned myself, though my unit takes quite a bit of muscle to separate the housing after the lock is disengaged in order to remove the quartz sleeve. That exercise is only needed for cleaning after being in use for awhile, not for installing the UV bulb from the get-go. I installed the 12x model in the 5/8" ID return line of my 320gph canister filter. Adaptors for larger diameter hoses were provided too. I opted to use a quality silicon based O-ring lubricant when I attached the hose fittings for added insurance against leakage and to help prolong the life of the O-rings though this isn't required or mentioned in the manual. Installing a flow reducing/cutoff valve prior to the unit allows me to better tune the flow rate and regulate the UV exposure time in the process. A graph in the manual shows that a 290gph flow rate or less kills parasites when using the 12x. The 3x by comparison requires a 55gph flow rate to accomplish the same thing (according to the graph) so one needs to choose the appropriate model for one's goals. I chose to pair the 12x Sterilizer to my 320gph canister rather than my 520gph filter as I wanted the parasite killing option if need be and I didn't want to try to restrict the flow of my 520gph canister to 290gph for that purpose even if I could. Since I wasn't aware of having any parasites in my tank before I installed the UV, I have no way of verifying how effective or not this unit is in that regard and I hope not to have to find out. I can definitely say after a couple days in operation at about a 250gph flow rate, my water is clearer than I've ever seen it before. Not that my water hasn't been predominately clear in the past, but it's stunningly clear now. This unit obviously affected suspended algae and other microbial clouding agents in a significant way. I'm guessing whatever pathogens exist in the water column are either getting fried or experiencing a bad sunburn at the very least also.

TL;DR if you are looking into UV bc of an ostreopsis outbreak this will work fantastically but due to the poor design and low quality material, i would remove it after. I originally purchased the 36W unit to battle ostreopsis in my 100 gallon reef tank. Within the week the outbreak was totally gone. It worked so well that i kept it hooked up full time. After 6 months or so of usage, the foil lining inside began to rust, slowly poisoning my tank. Thankfully i caught it before it caused any catastrophic damage. If you need something for full time UV sterilization i would look into more reputable options. If you just need to eradicate pests, it will work but i wouldn't leave it hooked up for longer than a couple weeks and keep a very close eye on it.

Ordered based on good reviews, however it arrived and did not work. I then bought an adaptor to allow 120v 60Hz AC and it still did not work so I returned for a refund. Only 50% of the money was returned. Overall not happy.