Ozone. Why don't we use it anymore?

[ZaneTer]

I have used ozone for the last 2 years. Water clarity is unmatched but I only run mine for less than an hour a day. I run a triton system so no water changes and a very large amount of chaeto. Within a month yellowing can be noticed if I don’t run ozone.
Mine runs straight into the skimmer and my ORP rises to a max of 300. I am not chasing ORP figures. I wanted it to keep my water clean and it does exactly that.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I use ozone. It keeps the water clean, pale blue, and smelling fresh. Livestock also seem to like it, if one can determine that to any real degree. I have the Ozotech generator from BRS, set to nominal output of 80 mg/hr, controlled by Apex and calibrated ORP probe. Air pumped in through a silica air dryer, O3 resistant tubing after the ozonizer, feeds into its own port on my skimmer silencer. There's a bag of carbon hanging directly in the path of skimmer water outflow, and a large carbon-filled cap sitting on top of the skimmer to filter its effluent air. At first when this tank was new, I ozonized aggressively, but with time the amount of ozone needed to maintain an ORP of just under 400 has dropped to around 2 hrs total per day, and I no longer directly couple O3 generation to ORP level, but am using a timer now instead.

Ozone makes some people nervous due to potential human toxicity, but there are a few things to mitigate that concern. First, O3 tends to stay where it forms and decays quickly. Second, it has the odd feature that it degrades even faster when it has to pass through narrow openings. Meaning, closed cabinet doors are exceptionally good at killing it. Third, meters are available that will constantly read the ambient O3 level; sort of like the CO (carbon monoxide) meter you may already have. 6' away from my aquarium, mine has never read more than the first green bar. Although if you put it in the sump while the ozone is on, remove the skimmer carbon cap, and close the cabinet door, it reaches maximum red within minutes.

Do you notice macro faunal changes ? Depending on the amount used?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Ozone is not going to hurt anyone. I don't know where that came from. It won't fill your house with gas, won't cause respiratory failure, mononucleosis, Heart attack, the heartbreak of psorisis or anything else. Maybe if you put the tube up your nose but then if you are that worried , maybe you should collect stamps or those tags that say "Do not remove under penalty of the law".
You will smell it right away and if the generator fails, it stops producing Ozone, it won't mistakenly generate radioactive waste, plutonium 235, radon or chicken soup. I pull the hose off all the time when I am cleaning my skimmer cup. It clears my nose and cures acne. Not that I have any of that. an aquarium ozonator won't even kill an ich parasite but it may upset their stomach. I think too many people are too worried about too many silly things.
Instead worry about fashion trends, will handlebar mustaches come back in style, what about culottes, or DA hair styles.

Lol.
They were marketing really big ozone machines for a while to clean the air in houses and apattments , especially out here on the west coast and the Lovely LA smog. Caused a few problems in small city apartments.


Uh, when did culottes go out of style ?

 

[Want2BS8ed]

Uh, when did culottes go out of style ?

Oh what I learn here on R2R... had to look up culottes. LOL

 

[rkpetersen]

Do you notice macro faunal changes ? Depending on the amount used?

I don't think so, but very hard to say. I did notice more life in the sandbed after I decreased my overall ozone use (and ORP dropped below 400), but I had also stopped vacuuming the sand a month or so earlier and my refugium was becoming more productive as well. I have not been a very good scientist, changing multiple variables in overlapping sequence; cause and effect were not well documented. ;Meh

As far as corals, nems, fish, snails, etc; I never really noticed any effect I could clearly attribute to ozone. I have noticed negative effects from many other supposedly safe things, sometimes as simple as a water change.

 

[DanConnor]

I run it into my skimmer nightly for a few hours in the middle of the night. My reef octopus skimmer has a handy fitting that makes it easy. I tried a Geo reactor but the configuration of my system made it hard to implement; need to sell that I guess.

 

[tigé21v]

I've always thought a speece cone would be the best way to introduce ozone into the water column, but I've never seen an example of anyone doing it.
Anyone here ever try it?

 

[special-ops-s2k]

Almost no hobby reefer uses enough ozone to sterilize the water contacting it. That takes time and pressures not attained without a special reactor. But de-yellowing water is easy.

Hate to revive an old thread... but if a Reefer wanted to sterilize their water, would you suggest something along the lines of your homemade tube coil reactor? I have a 200g display and probably 250g total system volume. I’m trying to prevent as much disease as possible and ozone interests me

 

[reefwiser]

https://www.avastmarine.com/collections/avast-built/products/mutiny-ozone

 

[Paul B]

Ozone won't eliminate diseases but it will eliminate your old friends that you don't like any more.

 

[naterealbig]

Almost no hobby reefer uses enough ozone to sterilize the water contacting it. That takes time and pressures not attained without a special reactor. But de-yellowing water is easy.

Dr. Farley - will ozone remove bacterial blooms from the water column (that make the water cloudy) at "normal" hobbyist doses like a UV sterilizer would?

 

[Miami Reef]

I use ozone sparingly. Every few weeks, I target around 400mV, and I only run it until it reaches that goal.

I also use BRS 0.8 ROX Carbon. Occasionally I will dose calcium carbonate. My water is very pristine.

In my experience, ORP probe readings will falsely read higher over time. I bleach the probe for 10 minutes and it resets after a few days.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Dr. Farley - will ozone remove bacterial blooms from the water column (that make the water cloudy) at "normal" hobbyist doses like a UV sterilizer would?

I do not think so.

 

[ReefGeezer]

I used ozone in pressurized reactors rather than skimmers on my systems in my old LFS in the early 90's. They were pretty simple. Back then, the reactors and the skimmers were DIY and of course, very manly.