How much air to feed a Red Sea Ozone Generator

[mnestroy]

I have a Red Sea 100 mg/hr Ozone Gen.

The problem I am having is I can not keep my ozone above 300 for long. If I put fresh dryer crystals in, and put the unit at 100% then I can reach the high 300's, but in a weeks time it will start to drop.

So I suspect a few things.

1. How often do you need to charge the drier crystals, I was told that if not using them u'll get 50% of the rated ozone, and most people say they only do 10-25mg/hr (so even if crystals are spent, 50% of 100mg is still way over what others dose.

2. Maybe i'm pushing to much air through the unit, how do you know if this is a concern?

btw, this is on a 40breeder/20sump.

 

[JetCat USA]

the higher the humidity the quicker the desiccant expires, the higher the humidity entering the O3 generator the lower the O3 output. do you keep the unit in your stand?

 

[mnestroy]

no unit is kept outside of stand, aprx 2feet away...

I'm just courious if I send less air through the unit would it produce a stronger dose of ozone? and in return extent the life of my air drier.

 

[JetCat USA]

the unit is only capable of producing XX mg of O3 per XX time.

O3 is also Very reactive, if you slow the air flow down substantially you'll loose most of the O3 before it makes it out of the unit and in high humidity environments slowed air flow can cause an accumulation of moisture which turns to a very nasty acid coming out of the unit, not a good thing.

 

[RichConley]

How are you introducing the ozone? In the skimmer or in a reactor?

I run a 50mg (Sander C50) unit, and run it at about 10% strength on 90g, and have no problem keeping it at 400, running about 2 hours a day.

If you can't keep 300 with 100mg on 60g of water, either theres something wrong with the unit itself, theres a ton of waste being produced by the tank, or your monitor is wrong.


Too much air really wont cause a problem. The ozone making process (basically lightening) is pretty much instantaneous. The air coming out of the unit will be just less saturated if you speed it up.

 

[pogodzib]

There was a 3 part article in Reefkeeping magazine in 2006 that discusses ozone and air flow rate. If I recall correctly, a higher air flow rate will produce more ozone, but it is at a lower concentration and the water may have a tougher time reacting with it, along with the dryer beads having a tougher time removing the moisture from the air. I think the final result from the article and testing ended up being that air flow rate really doesn't matter too much.

One of the problems with Red Sea Ozonizers is that their ozone production seems to reduce over time, so your not really getting the rated ozone amount. Some people, myself included, hook up their RO unit to the ozonizer's air input once every 4-6 months to clean the inside of the ozonizer out for a couple minutes with clean water. After that, I blow the water out using my mouth and then hook my air pump up to the unit for a couple hours to blow out the rest of the water. After doing that, if your ozonizer was dirty inside, when you turn the ozonizer back on you will notice that it produces way more ozone then it did previously. BTW - I take no responsibility if your unit blows up or breaks trying to clean the unit this way. I typically dose around 25 mg/hr (without using my air dryer) in 160 total gal of water and don't have any problem keeping my ORP up around 380.

 

[JetCat USA]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10557451#post10557451 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RichConley

If you can't keep 300 with 100mg on 60g of water, either theres something wrong with the unit itself, theres a ton of waste being produced by the tank, or your monitor is wrong.

I've seen systems that used ozone and hardly if ever got water changes that got to the point that the O3 wouldn't raise ORP levels any longer and they'd gradually fall even with 100 mg/hr units on 24/7. a partial water change always solved the problem and be it only a WAG (will a** guess) i always thought it had something to do with the bromine levels in the system which are turned to hypo bromide by the O3 that were depleted and never replenished with water changes.

 

[RichConley]

might be, no idea.

Maybe try cleaning the thing. I dont know much about the red sea, but with my sander, the whole unit is basically just two plates. Electricity is run through them, and causes arcing. The arcing creates the ozone.

sometimes they get crud on the plates. With the sander, its just removing a couple of screws, and popping off the plate that the airlines attach to. (make sure the unit is unplugged!)

 

[mnestroy]

Its funny you mention the fresh RO water idea... Several months ago I had a mishap and power went out and water came out of my skimmers intake hose and found its way into the Ozone hose... made it all the way to my air drier....

So I will try what you suggested by flushing it clean with RO water.

Also the unit is hooked up to my H&S a150 skimmer.


What about running the Redseas without air driers? Previous articles said u'll see a 50% reduction in Ozone then that should still be plenty for my tank... just having to recharge these driers is a pain.

 

[JetCat USA]

if you live in the middle of the desert in Arizona you won't have any significant decrease in O3 generation by not using an air drier, if you live in the middle of a rain forest you'll see substantially more then a 50% reduction, it's not as simple as saying 'Use the drier or you'll get a 50% loss' it's about the relative humidity of the air entering the unit, the higher the humidity the lower the O3 generation.

 

[pogodzib]

Like JetCat Says, it all depends on the humidity levels in your house. I keep my house at a 45% relative humidity and feel that it isn't worth it for me to have to recharge the beads constantly when I'm not running my ozonizer full bore. If I wouldn't be able to get my ORP up without maxing out my ozone unit, then I'd put the air dryer back on. Here's a link to Part 3 of the article in Reefkeeping mag.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-05/rhf/index.php

Part 3 has RHF's finding on the effects of air drying. At the beginning of the article, there is a link to Parts 1 & 2. Part 2 has some discussion as to the reasoning behind using the air dryer.

RichConley - When you open up a Red Sea ozonizer, there is a black "tube" that is sealed with one or two wires going into it. Unfortunately, you can't take it apart like the Sanders units to clean them so there isn't an easy way to clean things off by hand. Makes me wish I had my old Sanders unit back. Too bad it was beyond repair.

 

[Fishbulb2]

mnestroy,
please keep us up to date as to how the cleaning goes and if you can get your ORP up above 300 mv. I'm considering the exact same unit for roughly the exact same tank and so of course it worries me that it's not working out better for you.
FB