Any recommendations for an alternative to uniseals?

I use these also

Actually bulkheads seal pretty good on 5 gal buckets , lowes buckets anyway. And yea this is a really old thread.

Square buckets are ideal.
I tried Uni-Seals for my build and they failed me miserably. They did not leak from installation, but several split at the factory seam during my testing phase. People swear by them and they work for some people, as evidenced by the many pictures of them in action.
I took the whole thing apart and did it with bulkheads. If you get decent bulkheads they will suck the bucket wall flat when you tighten them. The good ones have nice thick washers. Leaks are unacceptable and bulkheads assured me that.
You can even get double threaded bulkheads so that you can screw filters, screens ect to the inside, and a Male PVC adapter to the outside.
Just so you know I am not talking shit.
Look closely and you can see that the other one is splitting as well.

You can see they sucked the bucket wall flat. You just need a big wrench.
These wont leak until the bucket cracks or I take them off.

I screwed the male PVC into them before gluing the other sections on.

Has not leaked a single solitary drop. I have kicked it and all kinds of shit walking around in there.
Here is whats chillen in there now so you know I am not just sending you pics of some half built shit.

Yea I've been dealing with the same thing lately , my problem with the uniseals is the hole has to be very accurate and the hole saw i used had I slight wobble or wasnt running true if u know what I mean. Plus my seals were not new and seamed harder or not as soft as new ones. They do work if you get everything perfect, but with time and the high amount of pressure to make the seal , the thin walled buckets sometimes split and leak. Bulkheads are far better for thin walled buckets, I think the peeps that post early in this thread didn't realize how flexible these buckets are , not nothing like rigid PVC.

Dang I just noticed your seals themselves are splitting. I think the 1 1/4 inch grommets GH use for the drains in the aero units might be better than uniseals, but I've not seen any larger sizes like those. Ebay has the current culture bulkheads. There pricey but the best bulkheads I've seen.

5by5lec you cool your airpumps? I bet your nutes run alot cooler with everything insulated. LEC's run much cooler also, been running 315s and the old 330s.

boybelue said:

5by5lec you cool your airpumps? I bet your nutes run alot cooler with everything insulated. LEC's run much cooler also, been running 315s and the old 330s.

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If you want to call it that lol. I found that putting a case fan blowing on each lowers the temp quite a bit. They go from hot to the touch to lukewarm. Its more for life of the unit than anything. I run a chiller.
The seals split during testing so no biggie. Amazon has a good selection of bulkheads. The pricier ones are much thicker and have fat seals. You would have to apply a tremendous amount of pressure on something like that to break it during installation.
I have never used any other light, but I can get away with running two of them in a 5x5 with just a 6" fan that tells you anything. The things are intense though.

High amount of pressure is right. Even with soap and lube, sticking the PVC through the uni seals was very difficult and was putting a lot of strain on the side of the bucket.

I give up on the 1 1/2 uniseals i have , I'm putting 1 inch through some waterfarms ive had forever, after this run I'll probably get those current culture bulkheads, the 2 inch and try to salvage the lowes buckets I cut for the 11/2 inch uniseals. I don't see no hope for using the uniseals unless I find something really rigid that want flex and crank like most stuff. Might try those tuffboxes or whatever there called that everybody uses with the yellow lids. I can put my hand practically 1 inch away from the 330 ceramic bulb and hold it there , seams cooler than the 315 , might be because it's an ED-37 with the bigger outer envelope or maybe because it's a 4k bulb and my 315s are 3k idk , but it's amazing the amount of light both bulbs emit with low heat output.