Erm, I forgot about the 8/10/15w stuff. It's the ballast it came with that drives the bulb, and mine's a QL-10, so I actually get around 22.5wpg/hr
With that in mind, you'd get your money's worth with the 25w version
I've had no experience with, nor done any research on, the Coralife units, so you'd be best to do some googling
Ultimately you may want to buy what will fit your space the best for you
If hang on will work best, go for it, but the outlet will be above water and may splash making a mess and creating bubbles
The Pentair unit requires the bulb to come out the top, so make sure you have room
We're only running aquarium water here, not bog or sewer water, so I don't see there being a huge difference between brands
Maybe judge your purchase based on reviews with your 3 stipulations in mind - Ease of getting bulbs (
and other parts ), ease of cleaning, ease of setup
You always want to 'push' water through pretty much any type of equipment
You don't want any un-filtered or air-filled water going through your sterilizer, so decide where to put the pump based on that
The pump I mentioned is submerged and is very quiet - I don't hear it over my return pump. I use barbed fittings, vinyl hose and clamps so removal is easy enough
Question - if you were to buy the QL-25, do you have room for that beast ? It's almost 28" tall
Whatever you do end up with, make sure you have enough room to work on it
I've owned 3 kinds of sterilizers;
1 - Inline
2 - HOB
3 - Stand alone
1 - pain in the arse as the design of mine dictated it be mounted vertically. This wasn't so bad for bulb replacement, but for servicing I had to take it off-line
2 - same problem as 1, but only 1 hose to remove. Still don't like it
Both 1 and 2 bulbs came out the bottom so location was an issue
3 - love how it can be serviced in place
I can do all my maintenance where it sits without disconnecting any plumbing
My unit is next to my sump in my sump room, so I have lots of room to work on it
I like to clean mine out every few months or so. I wash the quarz sleeve to keep the bulb working efficiently
So, if you're like me, make sure you'll be able to re and re it easily or you will hate it
You should replace the bulb yearly, and the quartz sleeve every couple of years or so ( whenever it starts to get milky ), so look at replacement costs
Oh, one bit of research I did that may help ...
The UV light will harden plastic
Pentair has a liner ( protective sleeve ) that can be replaced
If you can't replace the liner, the housing will eventually go brittle and you have to replace the whole unit
And I use 3/4" fittings that can be purchased at any hardware store, so I'm not stuck replacing proprietary fittings when they break or get squished out of round