For all of you using UV sterilizers, you know that setting and maintaining the proper flow rate through the UV sterilizer is important for the unit to control the pathogens in your tank.

Here's a simple little $12.00 device that will simply and accurately measure the amount of water passing through your sterilizer.

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=OE1269

Neat product.

I'll probably be hitting you up for some advice in the next couple of months. I think my fish want a UV sterilizer for Mother's Day and I know nothing about them.

I'll try to remember this product when the time comes . . .

Which ironically means the UV works better (slower flow = better kill rate)!


For those on $0 budgets, you could also use an empty 1 litre (or gallon equivalent) soft drink bottle and run the filter's outlet into it and time how many seconds it takes to fill it. Then work out your hourly flow rate from that via simple arithmetic.

20 seconds to fill a 1 litre bottle.
3,600 seconds in an hour.
Divide 3,600 by 20 seconds = 180 litres / hour.

PS. If it times at 23.76 seconds or somesuch, I think you'll be needing a calculator!