Ozone

[Skim]

Just wondering if anyone is running Ozone and is it worth the hassle.

 

[Pipes]

If interested in trying it I have 3 ozone generators. All you would need is a check valve and some ozone friendly tubing to run to your skimmer. Not sure on price at the moment.

 

[Kman]

First I would not attempt to run Ozone without a controller. If you have a Apex I would get the ORP probe so you can monitor\control it. You will need a air dryer with rechargeable media. You will need to decide how you want to run it as well. You can run it in your skimmer for added efficiency or you can run it in a Ozone reactor. Regardless you will need to remove the Ozone after it has come out of the skimmer or reactor so you will need to set up something that has a lot of carbon in it for removal. I would start off with a low dosage as a little of this stuff goes a long way. I used to run this hooked up to a timer so it runs only a few times a week or a few hrs a day. Something to keep in mind with Ozone is even a little that gets into the tank or the air is toxic to your aquarium and family. So you need to constantly look and do maintenance on Ozone to check for leaks and that the carbon is replaced before exhaustion. I used too run this stuff but found it to high maintenance and fickle for my liking.

 

[Kman]

Something to note when using Ozone. From my experience if you run it at higher dosages to keep things really clean the tank becomes to sterile and I noticed after some time the fish had a compromised immune systems. So unless you kept it at the higher levels once you removed the Ozone or lowered the dosage the fish got sick. The life span at the higher dosages fish was quite shorter then the none Ozone fish. I have fish that were bought at the same time as my Ozone test batch that were not in the Ozone tank. None of the Ozone are alive today but the other ones that were not in the high end of Ozone are still alive over 20 years later.

I myself think because it was to sterile the fish immune system got damaged and didn't work correctly so they got sick after the dosage was lowered or got removed. To high of levels can also burn sensitive gills so be careful of what you set it to run at. It is very effective at oxidizing waste so you should weigh the prows and cons of it before you use it. I have seen people kill an otherwise health thriving reef tank because they got lazy and didn't do the needed maintenance on the hardware.

 

[heath]

Just wondering if anyone is running Ozone and is it worth the hassle.

interesting and what are the benefits of running ozone,

 

[Skim]

I have used it in the past, but that was a while ago and was not for long maybe a month and had to move the tank and was never used again. I found the unit which is a Red Sea 100 with controler but needs a ORP probe and I was wondering if it is worth buying a new probe. I have seen so many nice tanks that run Ozone. I know it keeps the water sparkling clear and you don't have to use much Ozone to achieve that. i know it's like anything else so swear at it and some swear by it and would never run a tank without it.

 

[Pipes]

Don't know. My ozone units are for iron filters, and controlled by circuit boards. I don't plan on running it on my tank, as I'll be running on the simple concept.

 

[Kman]

Ozone is great for oxidizing waste out of the water and keeping the water clear. But to be honest unless you have a system that the waste producers (like an army of fish) far outweigh the waste processor's (like most corals) or you have a very large system, then it is not needed and is a little overkill. Ozone was designed for very large systems (public aquariums) when frequent massive water changes to keep things clean were not feasible and cost effective or if your system has a very heavy bio load where water quality can go downhill quickly. On a typical reef tank it is not needed and is more of a want really. I myself would use it however in emergency situations where you might need to lower nutrients quickly and I do keep one on hand for these situations. But I would not run it constantly as my tanks is just as clean without it.