jakano
09/30/2009, 10:12 AM
OK I have just started to use ozone and I now know I am not doing it correctly. I have read Randy's articles and it looks like I should have been filterering the water and air for residual ozone. First I'll give you my reason's for starting the use of ozone, then how I have it setup. Any thoughts or suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated.
Just recently out of nowhere I had a complete outbreak of cyno. I had made no changes to my tank, Had not fed more than usual, or added any new inhabitants. So I added some phosguard and hooked up an ozone reactor I have had for awhile but just never used. Within a week my cyno is now almost completely gone, so one or both of those changes took care of it. Problem is I had a lot of ozone in the air in my basement fishroom. I wasn't to worried about it since the room is sealed off from the rest of the house and it has a large fan that vents to the outside, but after reading Randy's articles its obvious that I had a problem that needed fixed due to the smell of ozone so I turned it off.
Here is how I had it set up. I use this ozone generator and here are the specs:
Model Name: OZX-300U
Ozone Output: 300mg/h
Pump Output: 2-3L/min
Pump Pressure: 0.015-0.02Mpa
Ozone Generating Method: Corona Discharge (Ozone Tube)
Gas Resource: Ambient Air
Air Inlet Dim: 6.5mm
Air Outlet Dim: 6.5mm
I had the output of the Enaly ran to the air intake of my skimmer. The skimmer is a Geo needle wheel skimmer that I have converted to a Beckett skimmer. Since this was built to be a needle wheel it does not have the sealed collection cup nor does it have the collection cup drain that would normally be ran to some kind of skim mate waste collector. So as we all know a Beckett skimmer takes in a massive amout of air to do the skimming. Mine will peg a 100 scfh meter to the top so the skimmer is makking well over 100scfh.
So since I dont have the sealed lid all that air just escapes out of the top of the collection cup lid.The neck of the skimmer where it attaches to the body of the skimmer has an o-ring to seal it so I am pretty sure most if not all of the air esacpes through the lid. My ozone generator makes 300mg/h so thats quite a large amount of ozone being made and I can't lower that amount since thats not an option on the unit I have. I realize I am probably not getting the full 300mg/h into the skimmer since I am not running an air dryer since the Enaly has the built in air pump, or the unit itself might not really make that much ozone. But I was smelling a lot of ozone so its obvious I need to contain that some how. Should I place a bag of carbon on the lid of the cup that will cover all the vent holes? Would just doing that be enough to remove that much ozone?
I also read that I am supposed to filter the water leaving the skimmer with carbon to keep bad things from entering main tank itself. I of course was not doing that but I thought I was ok since I have such a large distance from basement sump to the tank. My skimmer is sitting in my sump which is a 150 gallon rubbermaid tub. The main tank is on the second floor of my house, so I pump the water over 25 feet straight up to get the to the main tank. My thought was with that much distance between the ozone generator and the main tank, the bad things the ozone leaves in the water would dissapate completely, or at least to the point that it would not be in enough quantities to cause any harm. Is this a valid thought or am I completely wrong on that?
I also had the thought that since my cyno problem has been taken care of, I would now just run the ozone generator in a maintanence capacity. By that I mean that I would put the Enaly unit on a timer and only run it for about two hours a day just to maintain water clarity. If I did the much shorter run time would I still need to filter the water coming from the skimmer? If at all possible I really would rather not have to constantly have the skimmer water run through carbon since I really dislike using carbon in the first place.
Like I already said any thoughts, suggestions, or critiques you might have on any of this would be great to hear, Thanks.
Just recently out of nowhere I had a complete outbreak of cyno. I had made no changes to my tank, Had not fed more than usual, or added any new inhabitants. So I added some phosguard and hooked up an ozone reactor I have had for awhile but just never used. Within a week my cyno is now almost completely gone, so one or both of those changes took care of it. Problem is I had a lot of ozone in the air in my basement fishroom. I wasn't to worried about it since the room is sealed off from the rest of the house and it has a large fan that vents to the outside, but after reading Randy's articles its obvious that I had a problem that needed fixed due to the smell of ozone so I turned it off.
Here is how I had it set up. I use this ozone generator and here are the specs:
Model Name: OZX-300U
Ozone Output: 300mg/h
Pump Output: 2-3L/min
Pump Pressure: 0.015-0.02Mpa
Ozone Generating Method: Corona Discharge (Ozone Tube)
Gas Resource: Ambient Air
Air Inlet Dim: 6.5mm
Air Outlet Dim: 6.5mm
I had the output of the Enaly ran to the air intake of my skimmer. The skimmer is a Geo needle wheel skimmer that I have converted to a Beckett skimmer. Since this was built to be a needle wheel it does not have the sealed collection cup nor does it have the collection cup drain that would normally be ran to some kind of skim mate waste collector. So as we all know a Beckett skimmer takes in a massive amout of air to do the skimming. Mine will peg a 100 scfh meter to the top so the skimmer is makking well over 100scfh.
So since I dont have the sealed lid all that air just escapes out of the top of the collection cup lid.The neck of the skimmer where it attaches to the body of the skimmer has an o-ring to seal it so I am pretty sure most if not all of the air esacpes through the lid. My ozone generator makes 300mg/h so thats quite a large amount of ozone being made and I can't lower that amount since thats not an option on the unit I have. I realize I am probably not getting the full 300mg/h into the skimmer since I am not running an air dryer since the Enaly has the built in air pump, or the unit itself might not really make that much ozone. But I was smelling a lot of ozone so its obvious I need to contain that some how. Should I place a bag of carbon on the lid of the cup that will cover all the vent holes? Would just doing that be enough to remove that much ozone?
I also read that I am supposed to filter the water leaving the skimmer with carbon to keep bad things from entering main tank itself. I of course was not doing that but I thought I was ok since I have such a large distance from basement sump to the tank. My skimmer is sitting in my sump which is a 150 gallon rubbermaid tub. The main tank is on the second floor of my house, so I pump the water over 25 feet straight up to get the to the main tank. My thought was with that much distance between the ozone generator and the main tank, the bad things the ozone leaves in the water would dissapate completely, or at least to the point that it would not be in enough quantities to cause any harm. Is this a valid thought or am I completely wrong on that?
I also had the thought that since my cyno problem has been taken care of, I would now just run the ozone generator in a maintanence capacity. By that I mean that I would put the Enaly unit on a timer and only run it for about two hours a day just to maintain water clarity. If I did the much shorter run time would I still need to filter the water coming from the skimmer? If at all possible I really would rather not have to constantly have the skimmer water run through carbon since I really dislike using carbon in the first place.
Like I already said any thoughts, suggestions, or critiques you might have on any of this would be great to hear, Thanks.