Ozonators

SPR

Well-Known Member
Hi guys

I currently have a Red Sea Max E 260 and have just ordered a new S 650 LED which arrives in 3-5 weeks

My local fish shop offers Ozonators which they come out and program and they help keep the water crystal clear and kill various harmful organisms etc including white spot etc. I have been looking at these to try and avoid any health issues with a tank of this size.

I am in the UK and although apparently they are very popular in Europe I just wondered if any of you have experience with these?

Ozone if out of control can be harmful and I have read all the science etc.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
I have used ozone before. It can keep water clear. It does this by killing everything in it. This is not desirable if you have any filter feeders in your tank, and this includes some corals.

You need to be extremely careful with ozone, not only for your tank but for you. It doesn't tank much ozone in the air to cause you problems. Generally, if you can smell the ozone, you have a problem. It's very easy to wipe out a tank if too much ozone is used.

If you are going to run ozone, it's best done in your skimmer, and the air coming out of the skimmer in the collection cup should be filtered through carbon. The water coming out of the skimmer should also be filtered through carbon.

In some very large systems, especially fish only systems, ozone can give you crystal clear water. On most home systems, I'd say skip ozone, because it will cause you more problems than it will solve. If you water is really cloudy, you likely have something else wrong.

Do not depend upon ozone to control diseases. The amount needed to kill white spot and other diseases is enough to kill the fish. You can get around this to some extent by using a skimmer set up as above, but you can never get all the water to flow through it.

As for popularity, ozone is one of those things that seems to run in cycles. It's use becomes popular for awhile, then its use drops off, and the process repeats. Right now, there seem to be very few people using it.

Generally I'd say stay away from ozone, and save your money for something else, unless you have a very specific problem that ozone will solve.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SPR

SPR

Well-Known Member
yes the idea is it connects to the skimmer air inlet and is run for shorts periods only and is set up taking the measurements of your room size so that's it's well below any hazardous levels to humans or otherwise.

However I have my concerns as its a fish tank at the end of the day and I don't want poisoning!

I don't have any problems at the moment so it's something I was maybe looking for in the future. There not particularly expensive and indeed Red Sea have their own make themselves on their web site.
 

RedSeaKev

RS Sponsor
There are many advantages to running Ozone especially as a means of controlling many fish diseases such as White Spot and Oodinium, its a case of weighing up the pros and cons, personally I think its a massive pro if you have Tangs in an aquarium as they are always susceptible to white spot.

I should point out that the C Skim pump is not suitable for use with Ozone so an alternative means of injecting Ozone into an S series aquarium is sought.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SPR

SPR

Well-Known Member
Thanks Kevin. I was going to ask you why but just read a reply of yours elsewhere which explains it.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
There are many advantages to running Ozone especially as a means of controlling many fish diseases such as White Spot and Oodinium, its a case of weighing up the pros and cons, personally I think its a massive pro if you have Tangs in an aquarium as they are always susceptible to white spot.

I should point out that the C Skim pump is not suitable for use with Ozone so an alternative means of injecting Ozone into an S series aquarium is sought.


I have to disagree with you on this one. Ozone is not very good at controlling fish diseases. You really need quite a bit of ozone to kill White Spot and Oodinium, and to get to it you need to have ozone in the display tank water. This means keeping a very delicate balance between ozone working against the disease and ozone killing you livestock.

Parasitic diseases cause massive losses in the hobby. If it really worked well at this, just about everyone would have it in use. Very few stores use it because of the possible problems.
 

RedSeaKev

RS Sponsor
DaveK then we will agree to disagree, Ozone has an excellent track record of controlling parasites if used correctly, you only have to look at a lot of commercial facility's including public aquariums.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
DaveK then we will agree to disagree, Ozone has an excellent track record of controlling parasites if used correctly, you only have to look at a lot of commercial facility's including public aquariums.

The difference here is that a commercial facilities and public aquariums have a staff and can test the ozone level several times a day. Most home reef keepers are not prepared to do this. It's real easy to use too much ozone and wipe out your entire tank. Yes, I did that once or twice when using ozone.

If you know of any serious work on using ozone to control the common parasitic diseases in SW systems, please post a link. I'd love to see it, because it it really does work, I'd be all for it.
 
Top