Dakar and Angels's run with Ozone

[dakar]

The wait is almost over... my ozone generator and air dryer arrived last night... got everything wired up and ready to go and after 2 hours of tearing up the house I couldn't locate a dang airline T fitting to plumb in to the venturi input on the skimmer Got some arriving today with a drygoods order though, along with a bunch of other goodies.

ORP... noticed a few interesting things about it, feeding time = a significant drop (~40mv) as more organics are added to the water column (makes sense), when the halides kick off ORP drops off a bit as well (~20mv).

The controller seems to have stabilized around 270mv during most of the day, with the variations noted.

More updates as this journey begins.... Now where is that Fed-Ex guy with our goodies?

[perpetual98]

I'm expecting goodies today via FedEx too.

[Reptoreef]

I've got a similar drop when feeding... as far as lights, dunno... that's when I'm at work.

[dakar]

Tested the enally ozone generator last night, a glass of tank water, droped the probe in there and the airstone from the O3, and cranked it up. Within 15 seconds ORP shot from 250 to over 600. Potent stuff, though exactly how much O3 it produces is left for speculation, the packaging says 200-300mg/hr, the pump itself says 200mg/h, the literature (see I was bored waiting) says 165mg/hr with pure O2 as the source. I'm not about to try to figure out the math to get a measurement.

Fed-Ex finally decided to make an appearance;

Buried in the bottom of the box where the connectors I ordered (pack of plastic T's and needle valves) not sure who goofed up me or F&S, but they sent me 6 packages.... needless to say I should have enough to last me a while.

Alas O3 is now pumping into the skimmer... small media bags with 3TBL carbon on each skimmer output (berlin turbo has two outlets)

1:30pm - ORP 270mv
Bumped the controller to the point where ozone just comes on

2:30pm - ORP 274mv

A very dry head of foam in the skimmer's riser tube (cleaned the skimmer completely for comparison). A light odor of ozone in the air, makes your nose tingle a bit. A little carbon bag on top of the collection cup should resolve that.

To verify that all O3 was making into the skimmer, and not being pumped out of the T fitting, attach a length of air hose to the open end of the T and drop the end in the water, fire up the O3, if it starts drawing water up the line you should be good to go, if it's blowing bubbles you'll need to cut back the O3 pump a bit or add some carbon filtering there as well. Or get a bigger skimmer :D

[carpenterwrasse]

ozone here killed 10 sharks at the local aquarium

[dakar]

Somebody goof up?

[dakar]

Just a follow up... ORP held 280mv through the evening, this morning I bumped the controller up just a touch and now holding at 300mv. Likely won't bump it again for a few days to let things settle in, the skimmer is still producing heavy thick foam but little watery skimmate, instead it's a dry very dark brown splatter all over the collection cup. That's going to take some scrubbing if it goes too long.

So far everything looks great, water clarity (though subjective) appears to be improving.

[perpetual98]

What's the news on your O3 setup? I got my controller today. Plugged it in and hung the probe in the sump. Started at about 45mV and 30 minutes later it's at 114mV. I'm going to just see what it settles at after a few days. I have to get a tee for the skimmer at some point and maybe I might play around with the ozone generator Sunday if I have some time. What mV are you running at now? Have you gone up to the 350ish area yet?

[dakar]

As I understand it the probe should take about a week to 'break in'... though I only lasted a few days waiting and started the O3 injection at very low levels.

Actually have the controller set to cut off at 350 and ORP fluctuates between 360-380 during the photoperiod, within an hours of the lights going down ORP rises to 390ish and holds. I'd say she's in maintance mode now... The ozone generator runs for a few minutes maybe a dozen times a day or less, and only hear it once or twice at night.

I removed the carbon bags from the skimmer outputs and just have them running passively in the sump. The carbon was getting beat up by the water and smashed to bits small enough to escape the bags and entering the water column. No bag on top of the skimmer, but the horriffic skimmate odor around the cabinet is gone and nobody's dead yet so I'm assuming O3 levels entering the air are safe enough.... YMMV!!!

The biggest key I've found to maintaining higher ORP levels is pH! Slowly raising pH from 8.1-8.2 up to 8.3-8.4 made a huge difference. Makes sense, as the ORP is directly proportional to pH.

Observed effects;
- Water clarity is fantastic
- skimmate production is actually down in quanity but what it's pulling out is dark brown (compared to medium to dark green before the ozone).
- Good response from coral, better polyp extension (too soon for growth observations)

Conclusions;
- should have tried this a lot sooner
- need a couple more O3 setups :D

[Reptoreef]

My skimmate is also less, but what accumulates is lighter in color and far more like a sludge in texture... ozone rocks!!!