The 10 Best Aquarium UV Sterilizers in 2024

The Ultimate Guide to Aquarium UV Sterilizers

If you want crystal-clear water without the hassle of a weekly water change, then you should take a look at aquarium UV sterilizers.

A good UV sterilizer can help you maintain a clean tank by breaking down harmful particles or organisms that cloud up your water.

However, there are a lot of products out there with their own features, advantages, and disadvantages. In this ultimate guide to buying the best aquarium UV sterilizers, we’ll tell you everything there is to know about this helpful addition to any tank.

What Are Aquarium UV Sterilizers?

Aquarium UV sterilizers are devices that make use of ultraviolet (UV) light bulbs to help maintain your tank’s cleanliness. They do this by ridding your aquarium of any potential outbreaks or unwanted particles. These free-floating microscopic organisms are not only potentially harmful to your pets, but they’re also often the culprit in making the water cloudy and unappealing.

UV light is extremely effective against bacteria, algae, microbes, and other pathogens inside your tank. Typically, UV sterilizers work in a light-and-pump tandem, with the pump working to pass the water through the light so that the light can then treat the water. Once the water passes through the UV light, every unwanted organism in it either gets killed or sterilized, preventing further issues.

Thankfully, UV light is not strong enough to harm your plants and animals, so you can use aquarium UV sterilizers safely without worries.

Benefits of Using Aquarium UV Sterilizers

Unsure whether to purchase one for your aquarium? Here are the benefits of using aquarium UV sterilizers in your tank.

1. Keeps Your Water Crystal Clear

Algae, as well as other free-floating microbes, thrive on the extra nutrients within the water column, such as phosphorus and nitrogen.

If there’s a huge nutritional imbalance within your system, these microbes are likely to take advantage and multiply like crazy, which results in cloudy or deep green water in your tank. This is a sign that the microorganisms thriving in your water column have become so abundant that you can now see them physically.

However, most microorganisms in your tank are very susceptible to UV light radiation. UV light causes cell mutations that prevent them from reproducing and ultimately end up killing them. This ensures that your water remains crystal-clear at all times.

2. Prevents Your Fish From Getting Sick

The free-floating stuff in your water column isn’t just made out of algae – there’s also a fair amount of bacteria, viruses, and pathogens in there.

If your fish have a low immune system, like when they’re stressed, for instance, then the abundant amount of nasty stuff in the water can easily latch on to your fish and make their condition worse.

UV sterilizers can help prevent this from happening. Because sterilizers can safely kill all kinds of harmful things in the water, your fish are less likely to get sick from them. This means that installing a UV sterilizer can save you the cost, effort, and grief of caring for and even potentially losing sick fishes down the road.

3. Reduces Maintenance Labor

All tanks need regular water changes to prevent ammonia build-up. Too much ammonia in the water can kill your aquarium’s inhabitants. But as much as we love fishkeeping, it’s undeniable that regular cleaning and water changes can get tiring too as time goes on.

If you have a UV sterilizer installed, however, you don’t need to do water changes as often since the light already keeps the water in a good condition. Since UV light eliminates algae as well, you also have to clean less frequently.

Types of Aquarium UV Sterilizers

There are five basic types of UV sterilizers, all of which have varying strengths, weaknesses, installation methods, and UV application.

Tray-Type

This type of UV sterilizer has a UV bulb hanging about an inch above a tray of slowly flowing water. The sterilization happens when the water passing underneath the bulb gets exposed to UV light.

Tray-type sterilizers are fairly inexpensive and easier to maintain than other types. However, they’re not as efficient and can be somewhat bulky in size, especially when installed in small aquarium setups.

Tube-Type Wet Bulb

Cylindrical in design, tube-type wet bulbs like Coralife Turbo-Twist and Coospider’s Submersible Light has a UV-emitting lightbulb fully dipped into the water. This makes the design compact and space-efficient. It can also sterilize the water faster than a tray-type sterilizer since the bulb shines UV rays on all sides of the tank.

That said, many aquarists are careful with this type since it’s also the most prone to electric shocks. Understandably, they’re completely waterproof, but accidents do happen sometimes. Remember to always turn off the sterilizer first if you’re planning to dip your hand into the tank.

Tube-Type Dry Bulb

Tube-type dry-bulbs like SunSun JUP 02 are similar in principle to the wet-bulb, but as the name implies, the bulb remains dry throughout. This is because the UV light bulb is encased inside a quartz sleeve, which doesn’t let the bulb itself touch the water but still allows the UV light to shine through.

Although it’s much safer to handle and maintain than the wet-bulb type, it also typically costs much higher.

Hang-on Lamps

Hang-on lamps are a type of UV sterilizer that is suspended on top of your aquarium to shine UV light down below. Sometimes, this type substitutes normal aquarium lights, especially in certain saltwater aquarium setups where UV light is important for coral growth. There are also varieties that you can insert in a hang-on-back filter and some which you can clip to the outflow of a waterfall filter.

The only downside to hang-on lamps is that they don’t do as well in the sterilization aspect as other types on this list.

In-Line

Often considered the most flexible type of UV sterilizer, in-line sterilizers like AquaUltraviolet Advantage and Flexzion Sterilizer Light are installed directly into your existing filter. Often the last process that the water passes through before it’s directed to the tank, inline sterilizers can be kept outside of the aquarium as a part of a canister or HOB filter. They are often tube-types for the most efficient water sterilization output.

The biggest issue with in-line sterilizers is how hard they are to install and maintain. If you’re not big on maintenance, you should steer clear of in-line types.

Things to Keep in Mind When Choosing UV Sterilizers

To choose the best UV sterilizer for your need, you’re going to have to compare each brand spec-by-spec. This section will tell you the crucial things that you need to be mindful of when choosing your next UV sterilizer.

Sterilization Level

Sterilization level refers to the sterilizer unit’s power to eliminate harmful particles in your tank. The three main levels are clarifying, level 1, and level 2.

Regular sterilizers are typically referred to as clarifying sterilizers. These units are strong enough to remove algae from your tank as well as anything else that can lead to green water, but not the more harmful microorganisms that can cause diseases.

Level 1 sterilizers are much better at killing bacteria as well as viruses. They still can’t kill all microorganisms, but their flow rates are certainly strong enough to keep your tank water clean for the most part.

Lastly, level 2 sterilizers are the strongest sterilizers out there, at least when it comes to the ones that you can use at home. They don’t need high flow rates to effectively kill even the toughest microbes in your tank. Do take note, however, that some bacteria are naturally more resistant to UV.

UV Transmittance

Aquarium UV sterilizers can only kill the microorganisms in your water if the light can actually reach them. For instance, if the water is too cloudy or dirty, then you’re going to have slow-going sterilization as the light won’t be able to properly penetrate the water.

This is called transmittance, which is measured on a scale from 0-100%. 0% means that the light isn’t able to penetrate the water at all, while 100% means that there is nothing in the way of the light.

Transmittance is most affected by how clean or dirty the water is since UV light will not pass through small particles floating in the water. It’s also affected by salinity, as freshwater is easier to penetrate by light than saltwater. However, sometimes it’s also affected by objects blocking the way, like aquarium decor or plants.

To optimize the UV penetration, it’s best to place your sterilizer in an area where only a relatively small amount of water can flow at a time. For example, the outflow of an aquarium filter is ideal for this purpose.

Second, it’s good practice to put a filter in front of your UV sterilizer to ensure that the light is passing through relatively clean, high transmittance water. If you have a sump filtration setup, set the UV sterilizer in the last chamber where the water is cleanest.

That said, if cloudy water and low transmittance remain an issue, you need to switch to a high-wattage UV light with a longer dwell time.

Wattage

How bright your lightbulb will shine is denoted by its power consumption, which is measured in wattage. The higher the bulb wattage, the higher chances of the UV light reaching every nook and cranny of your tank. In other words, the brighter the UV light, the more effective the UV sterilizer will be.

Granted, there’s no concrete rule as to how high the wattage of your UV sterilizer should be, especially since each bulb’s actual light output varies per brand. But in general, the accepted rule is that 4 to 8 watts of light is good for 20 to 40 gallons of water, 20 to 25 watts is good for 20 to 100 gallons, and 40 watts is good for 150 gallons, and so on.

However, some units like the AquaUltraviolet Advantage tend to consume more power while some, like the SunSun JUP-02, are made to be more power-efficient.

Contact Time

The longer the water is in contact with the UV light, the better. This means that if you’re getting models with built-in pumps, you should know the flow rate, as the lower the flow rate, the better. Also, the longer the UV light is on, the more it can kill the microbes in the water. Make sure that your UV light is long-lasting and offers plenty of contact time with water.

Submersible vs. Non-Submersible

UV sterilizers are either submersible or non-submersible. Many aquarists believe that submersible units are safer than non-submersible ones, since even if the unit leaks, the water will stay inside your tank rather than on the floor outside.

The biggest downside, however, is that submersible units tend to look out of place inside an aquarium. Tank keepers who are following a certain aesthetic would likely prefer a non-submersible one that they can hide out of sight.

Other than that though, there’s no reason for you to choose one over the other simply because of this one feature.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Long Does a UV Sterilizer Bulb Last?

This highly depends on a bunch of factors such as build quality and your individual usage, but in general, it’s a good idea to check the efficacy of your bulb every six months or so. If you notice that the light is starting to become weak, that’s a good sign that it needs to be replaced.

Will UV Sterilizers Kill Ich and Other Parasites on My Fish?

Simply using UV sterilizers isn’t enough when dealing with parasitic diseases in fish, as UV light can only kill free-floating microbes and pathogens in the water. If your issue has something to do with ich or other parasite problems in your tank, you need to use some type of medication.

Are UV Sterilizers Safe for My Fish?

It’s understandable why you might be worried about putting an electrical component directly inside your tank.

However, as long as you’re buying quality products like the ones we listed above, there’s nothing to worry about. Even a submerged tube-type will almost always be encased in a waterproof quartz sleeve or have waterproofed quartz bulbs so that water can’t get into the filaments. If you’re experiencing electricity in the water while your UV sterilizer is plugged in, then you have a defective product.

Moreover, UV light itself isn’t harmful to fishes. It kills only free-floating microbes in the water, without any adverse effects on your other tank inhabitants.

Final Thoughts

An aquarium UV sterilizer is a good idea if you want clean, clear, microbe-free water with less hassle. Remember, before you buy your UV sterilizer, make sure to keep in mind your tank dimensions, the capacity that you need, the additional features, and the type that you need to get. Even if there may be a confusing array of different products out there, as long as you follow our buyer’s guide, you should be all set.