Who is using Ozone on there system?

[RudyCDX1]

Are you using Ozone in your system? What brand are you using? Do you feed it into your skimmer, how?

 

Thanks for your feedback.

[flowerseller]

Are you using Ozone in your system? What brand are you using? Do you feed it into your skimmer, how?

Thanks for your feedback.

I used it maybe 14 years ago for as long as 12-15 months. At that time, it was thought to be one of the best ways to aide in hair algae control or simply raise redox potential. It was also used to increase skimming and I ran it directly into the intake on my Tunze 230. This sat in a DIY skimmer box with the water flowing back to the sump via a carbon chamber.

To allow higher MG's per hour to be used, many people injected it into CO2 diffuser towers with the tought that more was better. This often came at the cost of both fin and gill burning.

 

I stopped it use and have basicaly been using UV since, even upgrading in wattage twice from 9w - 25w and now to 40w. Part of the wattage increase is based on system capacity increases but also because I believe the habitat I create can handle it's increase without doing more harm than good.

My water remains cystal clear to the eye with the UV.

Many have heard me repeat that the water I remove during a water exchange is as clear and clean as the new aerated water I replace during the water exchange.

 

I prefer UV over ozone for many reasons, one being overall safety.

[Relad]

Are you using Ozone in your system? What brand are you using? Do you feed it into your skimmer, how?

 

Thanks for your feedback.

 

 

Hey Rudy..... I saw at BRK that there are two used ones on the shelf. Might be worth it to pick one up cheap and try it out.

[mutley29]

I use Ozone on my 240

 

 

 

Feed straight into my skimmer intakes and out over carbon as with most people.

 

 

 

When i started using it earlier in the year, i noticed a massive improvement in water clarity, and it has helped with a reduction of algae in the tank, which could be down to a number of factors, but i only really started to notice a substantial drop after adding the Ozonizer.

 

 

 

I don't run it hard, some people seem to like to run ORP at about 400 to 450 from what i vaguely remember (please correct me if i'm wrong), i keep mine at about 250, everything is doing well, no ozone smell anywhere.

 

I still do regular 10% water changes every week.

 

I have the Red Sea Aquazone 200

 

 

 

HTH

 

 

 

Anton

[JC Pollman]

My 2 cents:

 

I think there are a variety of ways of reducing the "bad stuff" in the water, and it basically comes down to costs IMHO. There is an economy-of-scale based on the size of the tank, and so there is no one solution that fits every tank. Here are my thoughts, and costs for a year, for my 240 gallon system:

 

1. Water changes are probably the best over solution, as they permanently remove bad stuff. A 20% water change every week would equal ~$300 per year plus the cost of making the rodi water. Note: there is no start up cost.

 

2. Running granulated activated carbon (GAC) and replacing it every week: ~$100, plus a 10% water change every week: $150. Yearly total: $250.

 

3. Setting up a UV system: start up costs would be something like ~$300 for the UV Sterilizer and ~$50 for the pump. After that, all you would need is ~$50 for a new bulb each year. Plus $150 for the 10% weekly water changes. Yearly total: $200.

 

4. Ozone is used by all large public aquariums as, at that scale, it is by far the cheapest. However, for my setup: start up costs: ~$200 for the ozone generator, ~$200 for the air pump, ~$50 for the ozone reactor, ~$100 for the ORP controller. Yearly costs: $0.00 plus ~$30 for GAC and the $150 for the weekly water change. Yearly total: $180.

 

A couple of notes:

1. You can spend less, or more, than the figures I list above, but I tried to make them reasonably consistent. You can also combine some, or all, of the above, but there are diminishing returns on your investment.

2. Your own time is also not entirely free. For example, if I were to do the 20% water changes a week routine, I would also invest in a setup that automates much of it - which adds more costs.

3. There are plenty of secondary benefits/problems with each of the above solutions, but I reckon that if any of them were really significant, we would all have switched over to just one method by now.

4. I did not add in the cost of electricity for each of these as it probably is not significant (compared to what we pay for our lighting), and is too variable to even guess at.

5. One last note: the above "solutions" and their costs, is how I would do it for my tank, and there is probably no one else who would do it exactly the same way - I offer the information only as a way to start comparting the various methods. YMMV.

[danskim]

There are many good articles suporting the use of ozone in RC's ReefKeeping magazine.

The main benefits are that ozone breaks down organic compounds that naturally take a long time to be broken down or consumed by bacteria (sometimes years apparently).

As a result, the now-broken-down compounds are much more easily filtered out by carbon/chemical media and skimmers.

At least that's what I think I read.