Customer Reviews

Advantage UV Pond Light, 8W

5 star:		(1)
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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent unit in keeping my pond clear of algae! My little (100 gallons) outdoor pond was over grown with algae. I have to clean it at least once a week to keep the algae under control. The constant cleaning had stressed out my little koi (3" long) and none of them survived beyond 6 weeks. After adding this unit to my pond, the algae problem disappeared! My pond is clear and I can see the bottom of the pond! Also, my water lilies and my new gold fishes are alive and well.

One small recommendation, keep the unit on at all time (like the instruction said)! After running it for three consecutive weeks, I turned it off and tried to see if the algae problem returned. With the unit off, the algae came back with a vengence. In less than 4 days, my water lilies and the pond wall are full of algae again!

If you have a little fish pond and don't have a UV pond light, you will have algae. Algae totally detracts from the whole pond thing. I found and rebuilt a very old little rock pond and bought this light to keep it nice, and it does. I have a similar, but bigger, light in my much larger fish pond and it has kept it clean for about ten years now. That pond is big enough and has so much established fish, insect, plant and gunk life that it is almost self-maintaining. Even though it is normally recommended that you change the bulb to maintain that other-world weird glow, I found that every two years is enough.

A small pond, however, cannot be expected to get that perfect natural balance and so this bulb may have to be replaced every year. We will see.

Note that the transformer is separate from the body of the light, so that makes it much easier to mount and prevents it from shorting out if the main tube part springs a leak. This is a good feature. Also, you can buy all the seals, tubes, bulbs, etc. to maintain the device. It is not a throwaway item and that is a good thing.

The part I didn't like was the description of "adapters" for the hose hook-up. This is misleading. There are simply built-in 3/4" barbed projections and only 3/4" hose will fit. I had to rig up adapters using 3/4 hose and 3/4 to 1/2" reducers made for drip systems (I think). The pump I bought had three screw-in nipples to fit three sizes of hose. THAT is an adaptor.

Anyway, while they don't give these away and the bulbs are not cheap either, this is a quality unit and a must-have device for your pond enjoyment.