Ozone problem

[Kinerson]

I have a small undersized ozone generator on my reef system of 300 gallons. I do not run an air dryer. The ozone goes into my skimmer and the outflow pour into carbon. The orp reading peaks at about 350.

After about 2 weeks of running the generator my Lps corals start to die. The flesh begins pulling off the skeleton. My Tri color acrapora starts to bleach out. My mushrooms start to shrivel up. Feather dusters pop there tops and begin dying. Fish start showing signs of ill health (large black blotches)

My O3 resisdual test kit reads "safe". This can't be caused by a suddun light increase because It effects feather dusters in the shawdows as well as fish. Carbon is fresh and plentyful (about 8 oz).

After 1 week of stopping ozone, things begin to improve in health. Acro stops bleaching, lps stop reseeding, etc.

1 month of no ozone things stabalized so I started it back up again and expeirenced problems all over again which confirmed it was ozone related.

What's going on here???

Thanks,
Greg

 

[Curtswearing]

WELCOME TO REEF FRONTIERS!!!

Are you confident that your ORP meter is calibrated correctly? It sounds like some Ozone is making it's way into your display tank.

 

[oliver]

Can you tell us what kind of ozone unit you have and the O3 test kit you use? To me it sounds like to much ozone or by-products maybe.

 

[Kinerson]

Yes I agree with both of you. Here's a link to the ozone generator,

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/7945/cid/1966

The controller and probe is made by millwaukee and I have sent it to Millwaukee to double check on it's accuracy.

The generator can only produce 30 mg/hr. Even if I let it run without a controller or probe I can't imagine that it could raise my ORP to an unsafe level in a 300 gal system (actually 345 total gallons).

The outflow of my skimmer dumps into a 4" wide by 10" tall piece of pvc with to bags of carbon inside each holding about 3-4 oz of carbon. And was maybe 1.5 weeks old when I noticed problems. I suppose it may be possible for some of the water to flow around the carbon bags and down the inside of the pvc tube. Either way, the red sea O3 test kit reads zero. Both in my display and in the sump.

Greg

 

[oliver]

With such a small generator you should be fine. Recently I applied ozone to my 180 and about a week later some acros bleached. Fish were fine. ORP went from 300 to 330 at 20mgs. an hour. Whether the two are related I dont know for sure but I have since removed the unit. This probably does not help your situation, just my experiances. Hope it works out for ya.

 

[Kinerson]

Oliver,

I'm assuming your acro's bleached due to an increase in light level. Although I'm still wondering about my situation I do appreciate hearing about yours.

Thanks

 

[oliver]

This was my first concern too. 300 to 330

 

[Anthony Calfo]

cheers, Greg. Welcome to RF!

I did get your phone message too... but thank you very, very kindly for posting this question publically so that you can get a better consensus than just my answer, and my answers in kind can help others for posting publically and being archived (rather than handicap efforts by private messages only).

Re: your ozone issue... it sounds like you have a good grasp indeed of the fundamentals of ozone application.

The tissue seperation that you spoke of is a type of stress induced polyp bailout likely.

one possibility here is that your ozone use is causing a rapid increase in water clarity and light penetration. The bleaching you observe in some other corals is consistent with this. Indeed, ozone is excellent for taking color and odor out of the water and helping you get max light use/value. But the stress here if so is not from ozone use per se, but rather would be fro a gross lack of carbon and/or ozoine to date causing tinted water and subsequent stress when clarified.

If this is not the case with you, my second gut guess would be that you are using a chelated supplement (like Iodine) and the ozone is breaking the bonds and causing shock/overdose to some corals. Do consider if this is possible too.

kindly, Anthony

 

[Kinerson]

Thanks Anthony,

I got to say it's great to find you again. I use to seek your advice on reef central and also had the pleasure of meeting you in person in Brunswick Maine this past November. After you left RC I really missed you. When I called you I did not realize that you where here on reef frontiers. And so after finding you here I posted for reasons that you had mentioned. I feel like I found a lost mentor

As for your response...

The increase water clarity I don't believe would account for the feather dusters ill health. The first time I dosed ozone they popped there tops. After a period of no ozone there tops began to grow back but the second ozone attempt sadly killed them. Both were located in darker regions of the tank and one of them actually in a very dim area underneath some rock.

As far as iodine I do on occasion add Sea Chem Reef Plus which contains iodine in it although I'm not sure what you mean by "chelated supplement". This is a liquid if that helps. I should add though that i don't believe I added this supplement during the second ozone attempt.

Could there be some by-products being produced as Oliver mentioned that is somehow not being removed by the carbon? I'm using a good amount of carbon however and doubt very much that any water is sliding on pass it because it slowly drains down the pvc pipe verses quickly. The only other thing I can think to mention that may be of help is that I do notice that the water in my sump during the use of ozone seems to collect a few surface air bubble in the low flow area. Almost like that water is thicker or syrupy although it dosen't feel that way. And this only happens during ozone use.


Frustratedly yours,
Greg

 

[Tone]

Greg,

Empathise with you for I too have experienced a similar outcome. My Ozonator is a Hailea HLO 800 which is small for my 150gal display and the ozone is dosed straight into the beckett skimmer.

I believe that a contributing factor in my case may have been a change of MH reflectors to a more reflective surface -- I raised the lamps a further 6" off the water and placed a sheet of pvc 'eggcrate' light diffuser over the top of the display.

Firstly, the acros bleached; then, my soccer-ball sized seri bleached before my eyes in 5 minutes; now it's the turn of the 'LPS' ... I sometimes want to cry when I see what has happened to my display.

My ozone is regulated via an SMS125 and I did have the ORP probe replaced as it was reading around 100mV less than my Pinpoint ORP monitor. I have noticed on the SMS125 that the dial calibrations on the face are pretty much useless. I'm not able to x-check recent performance with the PinPoint as I gave it away to a more needy 'Reefer. But, it is reading between 320 -370 mV depending on how it 'feels'.

Skimming like there's no tomorrow but getting very little skimmate in the auto shut-off container.

Please pm / post the outcome of Milwaukee's assessment of your meter -- it will be interesting to read what they diagnose.

Yours in misery,

Tone

 

[wrightme43]

Just tossing this out here. I understand that bromide or bromine bleach is created when using a ozone generator withOUT a air dryer. Could that be part of the problem?

 

[Kinerson]

Thanks for the reply Tone and sorry for your situation.

Wrightme43, at this point in my troubleshooting and research I'm strongly leaning towards some sort of a by-product and bromine is top on my list. I'm wondering if my particular ozone generator makes more by-products then the average generator makes. This particlular generator was given to me from a aquaculture research facility and no doubt got ALOT of use and ABUSE. I feel that most likely this generator was used many many months/years without an air dryer in a extremely humid environment. I seem to remember reading about how these Carona Discharge units can get a build up over time.

I would love to try ozone again in my system but this time with a newer generator. Test kits for these by-products costs around $60. Troubleshooting is getting expensive!

Greg

 

[Tone]

Greg, I use an air-dryer on my ozonator fashioned from a container filled with 'cat sand' large absorptive aggregate. If the dryer-less ozone create bromide, then I have no idea what it might be putting back into my water.

Tone

 

[wrightme43]

If you feel like that may be your problem, the guy to ask is the MOTM. Boomer. Just shoot him a p.m. He had a really good article on ozone, and the byproducts of using it. Its not knocking it at all, just gives the info so it can be used effectively.

 

[Tone]

Thanks Wrightme43, I'll get onto Boomer

Tone :idea:

 

[Kinerson]

Thank you all. I'll check with boomer on this. I read his article which helped get me to this point. I have some more specific questions now. I'm 95% sure at this point it is a by-product issue.
Thanks again and please post further thoughts if some cross your minds!

Greg

 

[Tone]

I have had some good discussion with Boomer. There are a few things that seem to be an issue for my techniques:

(1) The use of kitty litter as a desiccant for my air-dryer -- now removed; don't really need an air-dryer anyway as the fishroom is climate controlled.
(2) The ozone is metered directly into my skimmer but is not filtered with GAC at the outflow -- had the mistaken belief that the beckett skimmer would blow off the excess ozone, but this is not so.
(3) Potentially overdosing ozone as the Hailea HL08 ozonator (100mg/hr) dial calibration is of little value except decoration.

My system is served with a cannister filter dedicated to GAC but is set up on the display and not before the return.

Unfortunately, it is the end of the road for my acros but the pocillopora and the 'LPS' may make it.

For the time being as I await Part 3 of the ozone articles, I have turned off the ozone. This is interesting because after 3 days:

(1) ORP has settled at a respectable 350mV but climbing slowly back upward;
(2) the foaming ability of the skimmer has returned (skimmer gets to do all nutrient processing);
(3) pulling 1/2 cup a day of nice black skimmate whereas with the ozone I'd be lucky to get 1/2 cup a week.

Can't say that I've noticed any effect in the display as yet but this will take a bit of time I'd expect.

My thanks to Boomer for allowing me to take up his time in getting some excellent advice.

Tone

 

[Kinerson]

Tone,

Alot of orp probes need to be cleaned every two weeks or so. If you neglect cleaning them the orp value slowly climbs up. My Millwakee probe will climb to about 425mv. This climbing process starts about two weeks after I clean it in the cleaning solution and peaks around 4-6 weeks.

Despite what i've heard, I also experience minimal skimmate when ozone is being added. After ozone stops, skimate begins to develop again.

Good luck mate
Greg

 

[Anthony Calfo]

you will typically see that the "better" aquarists, if I may say so, notice a drop in skimmate production at some point in time after using ozone while aquarists that have ongoing nutrient accumulation/export problems find that skimmate production is not reduced by it.

The issue is that in low nutrient systems the competition, so to speak, between ozone and the skimmer sans ozone becomes apparent.

That is to say... while ozonated air can improve skimmer performance, it it not only "working" for the skimmer. At some point with aggressive nutrient control, you will see that the skimmer with ozone together meet their potential to process organics. Hence the decline in skimmate production.

But in systems with serious and ongoing organic/nutrient problems... the ozonizer and skimmer working together (or especially when undersized or just not maintained properly units) never reach their max potential for processing the existing and accumulating nutrient load. Hence the continued skimmate production in greater volume.

In both cases... the ozone is providing many other benefits as well. There is a reason why the overwhelming majority of public aquariums and fisheries use ozone. I agree and recommend it highly.

 

[Anthony Calfo]

very good point too from Greg about ORP probes. Even the very expensive ones are sensitive and have a short life of reliability generally (months not years)