New Gadget for the Hobby??

Philips also has this, the Philips Tropical Aquarium Purifier

 

Once Burned, Twice Shy

Wow. I have no idea what would happen in water, but do know there are health risks associated with these devices when used in the home. Another problem, "Ozone can adversely affect indoor plants, and damage materials such as rubber, electrical wire coatings... (U.S. EPA, 1996a)." http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/ozonegen.html

While ozone chemistry in water is not the same as ozone chemistry in air and ozone has been extensively used for water purification, controlling pollution through proven methods (good hygiene practices to minimize biological contaminants) is effective and less risky. The ozone fad did have a hay day in the 80's but a lot of people got taken.

 

Wouldn't it break down nitrates, phosphates, ammonium, iron, bacteria, etc that are needed in a planted aquarium?

 

The Ozone generators have been around a bit in the Marine tanks, i`m suspecting this one is also intended for that aspect of the hobby .

 

I can't see it being all that useful for most people. It's yet more scary techy junk that most people will run from. For special purpose tanks I can see the use and for a hospital tank it'd be awesome since you could just annihilate everything in the tank with a sustained blast of ozone. The problem with that is you have to do something to help deal with free ozone when it leaves the tank. High levels of ozone in the home aren't good in a way that higher levels of CO2 in the same area can't really match. Both could be a problem in tightly enclosed spaces but you need to be careful with both. I can't see the average user even looking at this, but I've been wrong before....

-
S

 

To Ozone Or Not To Ozone...

Hi,

Do higher ORP values cause a better planted tanks?
Or
Do better planted tanks cause higher ORP values?

Similar questions and discussion a decade or so ago in Reef Keeper community.

Biollante

 

A year ago I was taking some water treatment professional education classes on, among other things, methods of disinfecting water. This particular class compared things like chlorine, chloramine, ozone, and UV. Among the water quality experts UV was by far the preferred method of disinfection particularly because it does not leave a residual and therefore makes for healthier water to consume. However, the regulating powers that be still require a Cl residual for tap water production partly because they don't understand the chemistry and partly because the code is just out dated. Ozone was mentioned as a better alternative to Cl for a number of reasons (some I don't remember & some not relevant to aquariums) but particularly because it had a measurable residual good for reporting reasons only. In a nutshell, as far as disinfection goes, there isn't anything ozone can do that UV can't do better- more or less.

They talked about redox / ORP a bit too and I wish I could remember more on that but the one lasting impression I had was that ORP as it applies in the aquarium hobby community is vastly misunderstood. I got the impression controlling ORP with ozone in an aquarium is letting the tail wag the dog. We (marine aquarists included) should be focusing on other more conventional aspects of water quality and ORP would take care of itself.