Ozone & GAC?

[hunterisgreat]

Hello. I'm new to the hobby, but figured this might better go in this forum. I have an Ozotech Poseidon 200 Ozone Generator, Ozotech Ozone Air Dryer, Coralife Luft Air Pump, and Avast MC10 Media Reactor filled with carbon.
Simple question... is it safe to run the ozone 24/7 with all existing water/air going through the carbon reactor? Should I leave it out of the equation until I have procuring the relevant monitoring & controlling equipment (likely neptune) Found enough googling to want to get some specific answers... Thanks!

 

[hunterisgreat]

Nothing?

How about this setup? Or would there be enough residual ozone post GAC to reduce/eliminate the effectivness of the biopellet reactor? The idea here was to hopefully capture all the newly oxidized output of the ozone reactor and get it out with the skimmer

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It is likely safe. It may also not be necessary or particularly advantageous. I ran ozone for years but no longer bother. I ran a system like yours. Now I once in a while (once every few months) send a SMALL amount of ozone into my skimmer to remove residual yellow organic matter. I run that for about 24 h, then stop and wait a few months. I also use GAC and GFO, but not very aggressively.

I discuss it in detail here:

Ozone and the Reef Aquarium, Part 1: Chemistry and Biochemistry
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-03/rhf/index.php

Ozone and the Reef Aquarium, Part 2: Equipment and Safety
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/rhf/index.php

Ozone and the Reef Aquarium, Part 3: Changes in a Reef Aquarium upon Initiating Ozone
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-05/rhf/index.php

 

[ca1ore]

Although I do run carbon continuously, and have on all my reef tanks from the beginning (1988 for me), I no longer bother with ozone or ORP. I simply didn't find that it made any appreciable difference to the condition of my tanks. That it was a pain to use made the decision to stop easier.

 

[zoomonster]

If that's 200mg an hour I would definitely dial it down to maybe 25-50mg if your going to run it continuously w/o orp control. As long as your running skimmer output through carbon it should be OK. If your skimmer does not have a carbon cap or similar your going to get the stink and buildup of ozone around your tank and in house especially at higher mg levels. You might also consider using a simple timer to run it once or twice a day.

I've used ozone since early on entering the hobby and I generally swear by it (anecdotally anyway) with the typical heavy soft coral/fish tanks I keep. To me if nothing else it takes a load off the carbon reactor and the carbon lasts longer with skimmer working more efficiently. I'm still undecided if I will use it in my current build though.

 

[FlyPenFly]

I hope that's not the only water supply to your skimmer.

 

[stever1216]

I run both moderately.
Redsea 100mg. orp set at 360 for my 250gal setup.
10 ounces of Chemipure in a reactor changed every second month.
Plus I have a refugium.
Honestly, I could skip the ozone but once it's setup it's cheap to run and I feel better when I'm on vacation.

 

[snorvich]

I no longer run ozone. When I did, I ran a low level 24/7 but not controlled by ORP.

 

[Pny]

Ozone will disturb the bio pellets. I would not have the Bio pellets inline with the ozone reactor since it is likely that some ozone will be left after the postfilter with GAC.