Green Water?
Make sure your UV Quartz is Clean
During the start of the season with everybody undertaking pond spring cleans we sell a huge number of replacement UV bulbs, but changing your bulb is only part of the job. All UV bulbs are protected from the water by a quartz sleeve, these come in lots of different shapes and sizes, but are common to all units and are there to keep the water away from the electrics. They are made out of quartz glass because the UV light used in out systems does not travel well through normal glass, unfortunately, this does make them delicate and prone to damage. In the same way that the UV light produced by the bulb will not pass through normal glass, it will not penetrate in to the water if the quartz sleeve is dirty. After a faulty bulb the second most common reason for poor UV’s performance is the quartz sleeve being coated in limescale. This limescale build up can be so extreme that you can’t even see your finger through the quartz, so the light has no chance.
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An example of a quartz sleeve with a significant limescale coating
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Because quartz sleeves are so delicate a simple method of cleaning is needed. Just like the handy household advice of using vinegar and toilet paper to clean limescale from your taps the same can be done to a quartz sleeve. After cleaning rinse thoroughly, although vinegar in small quantities is harmless to the pond so you don’t have to worry about any small amount left.
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This is all you need.
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Cover the quartz in toilet paper, soak the toilet paper with a few caps full’s of vinegar and wait 30mins.
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.Hey presto clean as a whistle
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In fact so clean the camera struggled to focus on the quartz.
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We have cleaned a more modern test tube shaped quartz, but if you have the open ended style you can do a similar thing, however, you may have to leave it in place and poor the vinegar in to the chamber and slosh it about a bit.
Alternatively we sell UV Boost which is a treatment put in to the pond which will gradually clean the quartz sleeve whilst it in place.
Useful Links:
Click here to go to our Replacement Quartz Sleeve Page
21 May 2014 by watergar