Freakin' UV kight

I recently purchased a UV clarifier. My water has been green for about
a month or more now. Hyacintch not really taking off, we are now
getting into 80+ degree weather in GA. My pond gets full sun from about
11AM to about 6PM. Not good, I know. My pond at its fullest is ~1750
gallons. The UV I purchased is rated for 4400 gallons @1000 GPH MAX
flow. Ideal flow rate through the UV being 500-1000 GPH. Now, I have
the flow at around 850 GPH, best estimate. The UV has been running for
48 hours straight into a (temporary)filter made from a five gallon
bucket stuffed with quilt batting. The pond is showing NO signs
whatsoever of clearing. It looks tha same as when I first fired up the
UV. I have not had to rinse my quilt batting out so far. Last week it
rained just about every day, 7 days straight and was of course,
overcast the whole week. The green started showing signs of clearing on
its own after all the rain. I hooked up the UV and 48 hrs
later....nothing. Am I rushing things too much?

Oops, sorry. Its a Turbo twist 6x, 18 watt. Rated for 4400 gallons. Of
course even if it was only capable of doing 2200g, That is still more
than what Im using it for.

2 days? First timers should wait 7 days, or perhaps a
lot longer if you have green soup now. I'd pull the
batting out since it's only going to clog (way too small
-- you said 5-gallon bucket?). And you're sure that the
UV lamp is on...(never look directly at the lamp -- use
a mirror, else you WILL turn to stone). This is presuming
that you are pumping all water through the UV, and not
bypassing. It can take a couple of weeks or more for all
the full effect. When you noice that you've got less
green hairs (goop if you dump it) in your pump basket
(or whatever first-stage filter you have), that's when
it's going good. The water may be clear(er), but until
there's actually less goop collected, it's still not all
the way there.

--
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`''`'`'`'`'`'`'`' `'`'`''`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
SLOTHEAD

Yeah, UV is defienately working. I checked that twice already, of
course now I have a permanent hole scorched through my skull, but it
wasnt too bad. The batting hasnt even need to be cleaned yet. I pulled
it this afternoon just to see what was up. It had some brown
slimy-looking stuff trapped(dead algae?) and then the rest was just
sort of stained green from the water. It cleaned out fine, I put it
back in. I could crank the flow down some, but then I would only be
circulating a little less than1/3 the pond volume per hour. Would this
be ok?

"robv60" wrote in message
oups.com...
Yeah, UV is defienately working. I checked that twice already, of
course now I have a permanent hole scorched through my skull, but it
wasnt too bad. The batting hasnt even need to be cleaned yet. I pulled
it this afternoon just to see what was up. It had some brown
slimy-looking stuff trapped(dead algae?) and then the rest was just
sort of stained green from the water. It cleaned out fine, I put it
back in. I could crank the flow down some, but then I would only be
circulating a little less than1/3 the pond volume per hour. Would this
be ok?
===================
The slower it goes through the UV light the better the kill.
--
McKoi.... the frugal ponder...
EVERYONE: "Please check people's headers for forgeries
before flushing." NAMES ARE BEING FORGED.
Do not feed the trolls.
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

wrote in message
...
2 days? First timers should wait 7 days, or perhaps a
lot longer if you have green soup now. I'd pull the
batting out since it's only going to clog (way too small
-- you said 5-gallon bucket?). And you're sure that the
UV lamp is on...(never look directly at the lamp -- use
a mirror, else you WILL turn to stone).

Um, mirrors don't really help enough to matter. Never look directly at
the lamp unless you have, like, those amber-colored 'blue-blocker' glasses
on, and then only for a fraction of a second. Better yet, stick a piece of
yellow paper in the beam and look at that.

It doesn't take much long wave UV to screw you up, and it is somewhat
cumulative. In fluorescence microscopy we deal with it all the time. -cmb

i was just concerned about the water flowing too slow. Just seems like
if it were going too slow, it wouldnt turn over the entire volume of
the pond often enough and maybe the algae would grow quicker then the
UV could kill it, you know what Im trying to say? Plus . im a little
concerned that I may be taxing my pump too much. We have a HUGE
waterfall so I am using a 3600GPH pump to raise the water to about 5.5'
of head. I have the waterfall turned off because we are having problems
with leakage and evaporation with the falls on, I mean ALOT of water
loss here. So I have a diverter valve pumping to the uv and no water
coming through the falls, So essentially Im running a 3600GPH pump @
850 GPH. Probably going to burn it up. Ill turn it down a little more
though and see what happens.

I was just reading around on the newsgroup and read something about
needing to turn over the entire water volume through the UV onve every
two hours so that the UV can "stay ahead" of the fast growing algae. Is
this a good recoomendation, because if it is, then I could actually
turn my flow UP a little. !750g / 2 = 875. Im currently flowing at ~
850GPH.

"robv60" wrote in message
oups.com...
i was just concerned about the water flowing too slow. Just seems like
if it were going too slow, it wouldnt turn over the entire volume of
the pond often enough and maybe the algae would grow quicker then the
UV could kill it, you know what Im trying to say? Plus . im a little
concerned that I may be taxing my pump too much. We have a HUGE
waterfall so I am using a 3600GPH pump to raise the water to about 5.5'
of head. I have the waterfall turned off because we are having problems
with leakage and evaporation with the falls on, I mean ALOT of water
loss here. So I have a diverter valve pumping to the uv and no water
coming through the falls, So essentially Im running a 3600GPH pump @
850 GPH. Probably going to burn it up. Ill turn it down a little more
though and see what happens.
================================
Before burning out a good pump I would buy a cheaper smaller one for your UV
light. Also trying something like tall plants or large water lilies to
shade the water would probably help with the algae problem.
--
McKoi.... the frugal ponder...
EVERYONE: "Please check people's headers for forgeries
before flushing." NAMES ARE BEING FORGED.
Do not feed the trolls.
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

"robv60" wrote in message
oups.com...
I recently purchased a UV clarifier. My water has been green for about
a month or more now. Hyacintch not really taking off, we are now
getting into 80+ degree weather in GA. My pond gets full sun from about
11AM to about 6PM. Not good, ...............
======================
I got the best results from my UV lights (Tetra brand) when used at around
1/2 the max gph they recommended. It took them less than a week to clear
the ponds. Now I depend on plant filtration (to starve the algae) and large
water lilies to shade the water. So far so good.
--
McKoi.... the frugal ponder...
EVERYONE: "Please check people's headers for forgeries
before flushing." NAMES ARE BEING FORGED.
Do not feed the trolls.
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o