Ozone: How do you use it? What is stopping you?

[Viking_Reefing]

Temporary.
I have read on a number of occasions on a UK forum of people experiencing the likes of headaches attributed to the use of ozone. However, it never bothered me. I don't think people have to be actually "hurt" for people to have a negative reaction to ozone in the air for people to stop using it. Like I said some are a lot more sensitive to free ozone in the surrounding air in the room.

Ok yeah, that makes sense. However, if you suddenly started smelling ozone I would think that you just wouldn’t leave it but take action as soon as it happened.

I don’t doubt that people have experienced the above as I’ve done so myself once due to being an idiot. However I’ve also inhaled kalkwasser powder, electrocuted myself, cut myself in razors, got allergic reactions to euphyllias which I’ve developed an over sensitivity to in the last decade, dropped a large rock on my foot once etc etc.
If you are careless stuff can happen I just don’t think the consequences in this case are as dire as often perpetuated…usually by people who has no real life experience of using ozone.

The person I initially responded to thought that there were serious risks for his kid using ozone which I think is way over the top.
One much more serious risk would be that the tank bursts when one of the kids are standing in front of it. I’ve seen multiple instances of tanks blowing out and that’s something I think of when my kid is around the tank.

 

[atoll]

Scary stuff right there!

Plus makes you teeth fall out and changes your sex

 

[Spare time]

There is virtually no risk of that. Like many things the risks are way overblown.
You’ll get a scratchy throat, a cough and a wicked headache but it’s not chlorine or mustard gas by any means.

I don’t agree with the notion that carbon replaces ozone. For one carbon loses its effectiveness fairly rapidly and your water clarity will go up and down as you change it out…leading to instability in terms of light intensity.
In my opinion ozone is also superior in terms of generating crystal clear water…and you never have to change the carbon in a reactor.
Now, I run carbon as well but for completely different reasons.

My setup is a sander 200mg/h unit running at about 20% controlled by a profilux 4 (having some issues with the redox probe atm so for now the ozone is offline).
The ozone is being pumped in to a tunze 9410 skimmer who’s sole purpose is to act as a ozone reactor. I run carbon in the lid…not that it’s needed for such small amounts of ozone really but I’m not a huge fan of the smell.

Dana Riddle did a study on here demonstrating that the yellowing of water doesn't significantly impact par.

 

[Spare time]

There is virtually no risk of that. Like many things the risks are way overblown.
You’ll get a scratchy throat, a cough and a wicked headache but it’s not chlorine or mustard gas by any means.

I don’t agree with the notion that carbon replaces ozone. For one carbon loses its effectiveness fairly rapidly and your water clarity will go up and down as you change it out…leading to instability in terms of light intensity.
In my opinion ozone is also superior in terms of generating crystal clear water…and you never have to change the carbon in a reactor.
Now, I run carbon as well but for completely different reasons.

My setup is a sander 200mg/h unit running at about 20% controlled by a profilux 4 (having some issues with the redox probe atm so for now the ozone is offline).
The ozone is being pumped in to a tunze 9410 skimmer who’s sole purpose is to act as a ozone reactor. I run carbon in the lid…not that it’s needed for such small amounts of ozone really but I’m not a huge fan of the smell.

Also, I think people dramatically underestimate how fast carbon is used up. If you give it a rinse in the sink every other week or so, it can last well over a month. I've had 2 month old carbon still rapidly removing chlorine from water when I tested it. I'd imagine that if it is still removing chlorine, it can still clear up the tank. The main concern with carbon being used up fast is bacteria growing over it and "clogging" it but again, I rinse my carbon in the sink every 2 weeks (change it once a month or so) to clean this off.

 

[jda]

I know that I am late to the party, but here is my take on ozone:

I read many, many chapters in books and articles about it. I understand it well. I understand ORP too. The Jedi battle of the light and dark side of the force always needing to be in balance... In the end, the ORP reading and the effects from ozone did nothing for me that I could tell or could take action on, so when the equipment started to go out, I never replaced it. I could not tell that it was on the tank nor when it left.

ORP and ozone are some of the more complicated things to truly understand what is happening at the root of things if you want to use it and be successful. YOU MUST actually learn these things and not just go off of some message board posts since most get a lot of things wrong.

 

[WVNed]

My first ozone generator broke and after a week I knew I needed another one.
The thing I found I didn't need was the 80 watt UV I ran on my tank. So it is stored in the fish room.

 

[SPS2020]

Thats a lot of info. I choose not to use ozone because of another maintaince item and cost. I do like the results. @WVNed thats a crystal clear tank.

There are quite a few threads on R2R

 

[jda]

I found reef ozone equipment to be kinda short lived... but I have an ozone unit on my hot tub that is a decade old and still working including all of the tubing and stuff. Maybe the quality has gotten better.

 

[Paul B]

I built my first Ozone generator from an old and Huge neon transformer. The thing weighed about ten pounds. It worked well but when I turned it on, it dimmed most of the street lights on my block.

(true story.......maybe not about the lights, but the weight of the thing)

 

[Sean Clark]

I found reef ozone equipment to be kinda short lived... but I have an ozone unit on my hot tub that is a decade old and still working including all of the tubing and stuff. Maybe the quality has gotten better.

I think it is probably true that the quality has gotten better.
I just looked it up and I purchased my Ozotech Poseidon 220 Ozone Generator in November of 2016. It is still going strong 5 1/2 years later. I assumed that I would need to replace the tubing at some point but so far so good. Fingers crossed emoji.

 

[Struttmaster]

I am 6 months into the hobby, (Well I've had water in the tank for 6 months - probably took 6 months to build the sump area haha), and am looking to add ozone to my tank and have done a decent amount of research.
I have a Microzone CD325 that will plumb into a NYOS160 skimmer. The CD325 will be controlled with an Apex using an ORP probe to control when its on or off. Fallback will be off.
There will be activated carbon on the skimmer lid to absorb any excess. I'll be using dedicated Tygon Ozone tubing between the generator and skimmer.
Plan is to run the ozone for short periods when the family are asleep. I'm looking into getting an ozone detector that works wirelessly to notify me if level are noticeable above zero and will be able to remotely shut down the generator if ozone is detected.

 

[jda]

What do you want to use the ozone for? Running part time might not get you where you want. If you want to control water yellowing, then you might need to use it full time. Every tank is different, so there is no one-size-fits-all answer, but check it out before you jump in. ...or at least have a plan and flexibility to use it full time.

 

[Sean Clark]

I am 6 months into the hobby, (Well I've had water in the tank for 6 months - probably took 6 months to build the sump area haha), and am looking to add ozone to my tank and have done a decent amount of research.
I have a Microzone CD325 that will plumb into a NYOS160 skimmer. The CD325 will be controlled with an Apex using an ORP probe to control when its on or off. Fallback will be off.
There will be activated carbon on the skimmer lid to absorb any excess. I'll be using dedicated Tygon Ozone tubing between the generator and skimmer.
Plan is to run the ozone for short periods when the family are asleep. I'm looking into getting an ozone detector that works wirelessly to notify me if level are noticeable above zero and will be able to remotely shut down the generator if ozone is detected.

This is pretty much the exact same way that I have mine set up. Corona discharge unit into a Nyos skimmer controlled by the Apex ORP. The one thing that I noticed was that over about two years the ozone slowly broke down the air adjustment screw on the Nyos skimmer (even though Nyos claims the skimmer is ozone safe). The adjustment screw is only Nylon. I replaced it with a titanium screw.

 

[Struttmaster]

What do you want to use the ozone for? Running part time might not get you where you want. If you want to control water yellowing, then you might need to use it full time. Every tank is different, so there is no one-size-fits-all answer, but check it out before you jump in. ...or at least have a plan and flexibility to use it full time.

Looking to improve ORP, clarity, PAR and smell. Yes, maybe able to run constantly. See how it goes. CD 325 does not have a variable controller so will be a matter of turning it on and off to keep ORP within range. See how it goes...

 

[Struttmaster]

This is pretty much the exact same way that I have mine set up. Corona discharge unit into a Nyos skimmer controlled by the Apex ORP. The one thing that I noticed was that over about two years the ozone slowly broke down the air adjustment screw on the Nyos skimmer (even though Nyos claims the skimmer is ozone safe). The adjustment screw is only Nylon. I replaced it with a titanium screw.

Good thinking re screw. I'll look into doing the same. Cheers.

 

[Paul B]

What do you want to use the ozone for?

Oxidizing chemicals from corals and sponges. I have a big problem with encrusting sponges that are slowly taking over my tank. When you cut it, it exudes a toxin that affects my corals detrimentally.

I just removed probably a pound of the stuff.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I found reef ozone equipment to be kinda short lived... but I have an ozone unit on my hot tub that is a decade old and still working including all of the tubing and stuff. Maybe the quality has gotten better.

The ozone unit I'm running on my tank is a hot tub $70 Amazon special. Anything with aquarium in its title runs 5 times the price for lower output.

Pretty sure the O3 doesn't know the difference if it cant see the fish.

 

[jda]

For sure. I think that I had IceCap units back in the day? I forget the brand, but it was a name brand. They were known for being like 2 year units, but I could get used ones all over the place for cheap when people didn't want to do Ozone anymore. The biggest problem was lack of o3 safe tubing, fittings and all of that. It isn't like amazon was around to find specialty gear. Most would just use regular tubing and replace it when it got bad.

 

[Clownreef]

Hey all!

Can someone verify my apex ORP rule?

Fallback OFF
If ORP > 360 Then OFF
If ORP < 330 Then ON
If Output Return = OFF Then OFF
Defer 004:00 Then ON

For some reason I switch the toggle to auto and It does nothing.

Thank you!

 

[Clownreef]

Hey all!

Can someone verify my apex ORP rule?

Fallback OFF
If ORP > 360 Then OFF
If ORP < 330 Then ON
If Output Return = OFF Then OFF
Defer 004:00 Then ON

For some reason I switch the toggle to auto and It does nothing.

Thank you!