Ozone and Carbon

[gbroadbridge]

That however would be placed on the skimmer not in the water. My query was for the carbon in my reactor for water to pass through

No, the ozone treated water needs to be passed through carbon to remove the toxic byproducts which are created by the interaction of ozone and the tank water.

Otherwise the toxins will be released into the tank.

I posted links to articles about the safe use of ozone earlier in the thread.

There have been tanks nuked by ozone when used incorrectly

 

[X-37B]

No, the ozone treated water needs to be passed through carbon to remove the toxic byproducts which are created by the interaction of ozone and the tank water.

Otherwise the toxins will be released into the tank.

I posted links to articles about the safe use of ozone earlier in the thread.

There have been tanks nuked by ozone when used incorrectly

Yes ozone is not for beginners, and you need to know how it works and what you want from it before beginning.
So yea if you are new please pass the effluent over/through carbon and start at the lowest setting on your generator.

I have no issues with current skimmer running no effluent carbon. I could place the sock back on the 9410dc's effluent tube and drop in some carbon but so far, it's not needed, imo.
It's been running now for 3 months with just carbon in the overflow mesh sock of my 150.

Anyway less ozone on my system gives me the water clarity I am looking for.

 

[Privateye]

so you are saying that a UV messes up your ORP reading?

It doesn't mess up the reading, it just knocks the ORP way down. I should clarify, your typical UV sterilizer's UVC light will knock it down. Certain wavelengths of UV can actually produce ozone.

To put it in perspective, we were adding ozone to the system through our protein skimmer. We needed the ORP in the skimmer to reach 800, but the fish didn't do so well past 350. So we had a controller cycle the ozone generator on and off to ensure it was safe for the fish.

After adding the UV, I forgot what the measured ORP was exactly, but it was in the low 200's. Water flowed from the skimmer to the UV, and the ORP meter was just after the UV. It worked so well, that my boss thought the ozone generator failed and had us turn off the UV. The graph went back to spiking immediately.

So it's not a reading error, UV is really good at stripping ozone/ORP from the water before it reaches your fish. That's how we could get it up to 800 in the skimmer but the fish were fine.

A quick aside in case it helps someone one day: *COFFEE* will drop your ORP instantly. Decaf, of course :)

 

[Bent17]

Thank you all for your comments. So some points:

I can retain my UV running at 24/7 however it will mess with my ORP reading.. Maybe I can turn off my UV at night when the Ozone is running to have an accurate reading since my Ozone can shut off if it reaches a certain threshold

I was going to remove my carbon reactor since I will have ozone instead, however I think will retain it as you are mentioning that you should have it as it removes the particles. What is the disadvantage of not using carbon with ozone? I will be using ozone only around 2hrs a day just for water clarity..

 

[gbroadbridge]

Thank you all for your comments. So some points:

I can retain my UV running at 24/7 however it will mess with my ORP reading.. Maybe I can turn off my UV at night when the Ozone is running to have an accurate reading since my Ozone can shut off if it reaches a certain threshold

My UV has no effect on ORP.

I expect that if running UV appears to affect ORP the problem is due to induced electrical voltages in the lead from the ORP probe to the ORP controller.

You should be able to reroute the leads so interference is minimized.

I was going to remove my carbon reactor since I will have ozone instead, however I think will retain it as you are mentioning that you should have it as it removes the particles. What is the disadvantage of not using carbon with ozone? I will be using ozone only around 2hrs a day just for water clarity..

Dead fish :cool: would be one possible disadvantage.

You need to remove the toxic byproducts of ozone before returning the water to the tank.

Back in post #5 I listed some suggested reading if you wish to consider using Ozone in your tank.

 

[Bent17]

Thanks will be reading that shortly! Thought that having ozone for just 2hrs at night at a low rate wouldnt require carbon after the skimmer exit

 

[C_AWOL]

Thank you all for your comments. So some points:

I can retain my UV running at 24/7 however it will mess with my ORP reading.. Maybe I can turn off my UV at night when the Ozone is running to have an accurate reading since my Ozone can shut off if it reaches a certain threshold

I was going to remove my carbon reactor since I will have ozone instead, however I think will retain it as you are mentioning that you should have it as it removes the particles. What is the disadvantage of not using carbon with ozone? I will be using ozone only around 2hrs a day just for water clarity..

I don't see any differences in measuring my orp with my UV on for the tanks that I employ both on.

More importantly than aiming for some "goal orp reading" monitoring the trend of your orp while using ozone is what really matters since orp changes for many reasons.

The sudden rise is when I shut off all my equipment to do a water change which subsequently caused an orp drop.

I would just worry about going slow and adjusting as needed depending on whether you want to run it 24/7 or just a few hours each evening/period when nobody is home. If the goal is 24/7 then using less is definitely more and similarly in both scenarios, if you see results then I think that's good enough than aiming for X mg per gal

If we ignore the unknowns that are made from ozone reactions then at the very least, carbon seems to remove any residual ozone smell from experience (you will definitely smell unreacted ozone when its present)

 

[Bent17]

I will be running it only around 2 hours per day between 2-4am that is all. I am only looking for water clarity here. I read many people not using carbon in the water and now finding out that you should use carbon in the return overflow at the least...