DIY Ozone Reactor

[grassi]

I want to try to add ozone to my water. At now my ORP readings are good, but I'm still with a relatively new (7 months) system with a light bio-load. In the next months the bio-load is going to increase so I would like to be prepared and starting to test some more advanced filtration methods, like a cryptic refugium and ozonization.

The previous DIY, the kalk reactor, was a great success for the management of my water. The plan was to build a calcium reactor as a second step, but I'm still in the opposite trend (Ca too high), so that DIY must wait a little more time :-)

 

Ozonizers are nowadays more affordable and some products from China have been introduced and tested since a few years already. But the investment is it still some nice money.

So I decided to save some $ and have more fun with the DIY approach.

As usual Google gave me some good links, but I'm still confused about a right layout.

In some design there is a water input, a water output and a air (ozone) inlet. No output (releif) for air. In this setup, water and air are filtered together:

http://www.thesea.org/diy-aquarium/reactors_ozone.html

 

In some other there is also an air releif, like in this model:

http://www.marinetechnical.com/page6.html

or as can be seen in this plan:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y28/law086/OzoneReactor.jpg

 

I was wondering if there is a real need of separate filtration of both air and water.

 

Any ideas?

[Smann]

I have looked at the plans also, I like the first one where the water is forced back up thru the top, I'm not sure how the reactor will be pressurised in the next two with the water just running out the bottom.

My guess is in the commercial one they have to have a air relief valve just to be safe, I'm sure someone out there will hook it up to a 50+ PSI air compressor and blow the thing up

[reef165]

I ran one for years through my skimmer without and carbon and it worked great. I was told that if you don't use carbon, ya just need to adjust the ozone so that ya don't smell the chlorine smell in your stand. I had mine turned up just over half way and never smelled any sign of the ozone, and my tank had 0 ORP's, and my Bio-load was medium to high. Lots of SPS and about 15 small to medium fish in a 165 gallon.

[grassi]

The water is gonna be only in the last 3 or 3 inches, while the portion containing the media is where gas and liquid are gonna be mixed. From what I was reading in the other models, is the air pressure that push the water to go up.

Also in the Pro240 I think you adjust the pressure and that will set the water level somehow. I think I could just try a similar design (the Pro 240) without the water output (I can always add it later). I could put this unit before my media reactor (GFO and Carbon).

Most of people does run ozone without a carbon filter, just with an airstone in the sump or skimmer. I was reading a post of Calfo while he was strongly suggesting to filter the water and air. Also he wrote that the performance of ozone in a reactor is way more than through a skimmer. Well, moslty I want to build something lol