heya, folks... sorry for the brief (2 post insertion) awkward shuffle of this thread page but I just saw a thread from Bert Shaft (11/02/2005 03:37 PM entry) about making an ozone reacter and thought it best to merge it with this sticky for better archiving and visibility/help to more folks.
As for making a reacter... the term is loose. About as loose as "calcium reacter" or "phyto reacter".
Loose in the sense that they are merely plastic chambers. Capped tubes. Really not much more than that.
If you want to get fancy here, you can buy schedule 80 PVC pipe instead of regular schedule 40. Either will work fine. An ozone reacter really, literally can be as simple as a tube that we just aerate (glass airstone to withstand the ozone... Korndon makes them... Aquatic Ecosystems makes them too... many other companies. These are the "reusable" airstones marketed).
So... after capping say a 4" pipe that is roughly 24" tall... the top is plumbed or simply tapped (drilled) with some sort of air vent which you place a sack of carbon (nylon sock or the like) to filter any residual ozone from air... and you plumb the body of the tube with a smaller effluent water tube... over which you tie a nylon sock of carbon again (much like we do on overflow drains, skimmers, etc) to obviously catch any effluent ozone from out going water.
You can perhaps see now why old skimmers are set up nicely to serve as ozone "reacters".
And that is a simple device.
Now some folks like to add bio-balls or design modifications to increase the contact time between air and water... or pressurize the unit - these changes are intended to improve the efficacy of ozone (increasing kill time for ozone, increasing oxygen saturation of the water, contact time overall). They are nice features... and you see this in most commercial units.
But ozone is so very effective, that even a DIY unit will make a significant impact on water quality.
