Ozone + CAC with GFO and a....sulfur denitrator

[Newb73]

I have been battling Cynao off and on for a while. I have decided that the biopellets did not do the trick and carbon dosing may not be for me.

I am pulling my Nextreef biopellet reactor off line. Previously i ran carbon for 2 weeks and GFO for 6 weeks alternating in another nextreef reactor but i will now run GFO full time in the reactor that was previously used for biopellets.

I am installing an aquamaxx ozone generator in line to a geo reef ozone reactor which will then feed into my nextreef GAC reactor. and will run the GFO on a seperate pump.

The water flow in my ozone reactor will be much lower than a skimmer with more contact time but i will only be pumping 57mg/hr into the reactor which is running on a 225G tank + 40g Sump. Since that is only .25mg per gallon...maybe less, and the recommended is often 0.3 to .05mg per gallon per hour, i expect i will be able to run ozone non stop 24x7 with no problems. Should also have no impact on my skimmer this way.

Now to the question.......i have declared war on organics in my tank and am considering installing a korallin biodenitrator S-1502.

What are the pros and cons to running ozone with carbon(Rox .8), GFO and a sulur denitrator all at the same time?

For reference i skim wet with an aquamaxx Cone S Co3 skimmer and do a 37 gallon water change about twice a month as well.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I would not expect the ozone to help cyano, and might possibly make it worse due to making certain organics more bioavailable, but it is fine to use it.

All of those can be used just fine together. If the S-1502 is a sulfur denitrator, I don't think it will reduce organics.

 

[Newb73]

I was under the impression that breaking down organics into smaller chains with ozone would make them easier to be absorbed in the carbon. "up to twice as much absorption..and no one knows exactly why" according to BRS.

Sorry for the confusion, in that case i was using "organics" to include nitrates. At this point i cam considering anything that isnt salt, water, alk, ca, or mg as "organic"...

Okay so in light of your post above, should i continue with the biopellets? Perhaps the ozone might help the biopellets to be more effective? I recently had to remove nearly ever rock from the aquarium and clean it in a salt water bath. I cut my photo period to 8 hours a day, drastically reduced the red spectrum, some of the green spectrum and cut feeding by about 30%.

Started changing filter socks every 2 days and ran double the dose of Rox.8 the last two weeks (and am about to change the media out this weekend).

Just doing lots and lots of water changes had almost zero impact on the problem previously by the way.

At the moment, the tank looks quite good with no signs of new algae really but with my luck it wont last long like that. part of the problem is that my effluent from my biopellet is not getting close enough to the skimmer intake which is one of the reasons i was thinking of taking it off line.

Alternatively i could leave it set up...order some new hose and re plumb it to try to get the effluent to a better position.

Any ideas? I am definately adding ozone and plumbing it directly into a carbon reactor.....that has already been decided.

When my tank was new the ORP was around 400 and algae just seemed that it could not grow in that tank. Now it is around 350...im going to try and get it to 375 just to see what happens.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

OK, you are using the term organic incorrectly. lol

Organics are ALWAYS molecules that contain both carbon and hydrogen. Nitrate is not. It is as inorganic as a molecule can be.

I discuss the effects of ozone on organics (including he binding to GAC) in great detail here:

Ozone and the Reef Aquarium, Part 1: Chemistry and Biochemistry by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-03/rhf/index.php

Ozone and the Reef Aquarium, Part 2: Equipment and Safety by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/rhf/index.php

Ozone and the Reef Aquarium, Part 3: Changes in a Reef Aquarium upon Initiating Ozone by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-05/rhf/index.php

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How long have the pellets been in the tank?

 

[Newb73]

How long have the pellets been in the tank?

About 7 months. When i first started them i had a little cyano.....within a few months cyano was out of control. I ran tons of GFO in my reactor during that time and did massive water changes (37G up to once or twice a week)....the cyano just got worse and worse. I had to take a40g tank and set it next to my display, mix up some RODI to 1.025 with instant ocean, heat itn and then stand there for about 5 hours cleaning each rock in the bath.

That was the single most effective thing (removing it completely) but now i am trying to do everything i can think of to keep it from happening again. Money is not the issue, if something is even "helpful" it is an option. I do want to avoid obviously doing things that might crash the tank so i have avoided additives like cyano x, chemicals etc.

I considered doxing peroxide but after reading about ozone again (including your articles) i concluded that there wasn't much down side to adding it (Paul B swears by it in his 35 year old reef).

FWIW the GFO would clear the phosphate but the water changes WOULD NOT clear the nitrate readings and the pellets seemed to speed up the cyano more than it helped.

Also i did not see a drop in nitrates with the use of the bellets...even when running the full recommended dose. Only thing i noticed is a low flow rate seems to get better results than a high flow rate but the pellets spend most of their time clumped together with the low flow rate. The refugium only grows bubble algae and lots of it (no bubble in my display..not sure why ...i think my rabbit fish really likes to eat it).

Chaeto barely grows...it grows but at a snails pace.

My water runs through the BRS 6 stage with 2 RODI, 2 carbon blocks and 2 DI Resin blocks. It reads around 80ppm going in and 6ppm coming out of the RODI..its zero from there through both resin chambers but i went ahead and replaced the first resin chamber and rotated the 2nd to the 1st position just to be safe. it did seem for a while that water changes just fueled the issue so i dumped any salt brand that had any additives what so ever and went all the way back to Instant ocean.

Also, increasing water flow did not help the cyano...although it did kill 2 of my hammers.

I dose nothing but 2 part. Feed 2 cubes of frozen mysis and a few pellets per day.

 

[Newb73]

Anyway, i am now considering switching the biopellets for a sulfur denitrator. I am on the fence between going with no bp reactor for a while, substituting for a denitrator or just continuing the bp and see what happens.

I will be glad with less expensive retail algae srubbing systems come into the market, i may try one of them. I may also get a bigger sump down the road.

 

[Newb73]

Anyway...these were all plugs at first....zoas seem to love what ever conditions cyano and bubble also love....

 

[Newb73]

Also i considered having my water sent off and tested but in the interim i ran one of those diagnostic poly filters and the color change only indicated "organics", nothing else.

 

[Newb73]

Right now:

Nitrate: .75 (red sea)
Phosphate: .11 (Hannah)

 

[Newb73]

So far so good.

Added a giant claim and a flower pot today.

Water is crystal clear, nitrates range between 0.25 and 0. Phosphates are reading 0.

I hardly run the skimmer.

Alk, cal, mg demands are all increasing. Zoas are almost connected now. Acans growing new heads, duncans growing new heads.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks for the update.

 

[gettaReef]

What method of filtration did you go with that was responsible for lowering those pesky nitrates?

 

[Newb73]

What method of filtration did you go with that was responsible for lowering those pesky nitrates?

Ultimately i had to take a multifaceted approach. Change filter socks more often, feed less, my fuge is full of macro (need to pull about 50% out this weekend). Run a denitrator abd Ozone plus carbon (now intermittently). A 20% once a month water change. Moderate circulation a ton of live rock, a deep mud bed and marine pure sit under my chaeto macro in the fuge and i skim wet.

I also keep the ph above 8.1 and run alk between 9 and 10 and run the mg slightly elevated at 1350.

I can't get branching or encrusting sps to grow but im very pleased with the color and growtg of my plate monti.

Zoas, Duncans, Torch, Frogspawn, Mushrooms and even blasto and a giant claim does well in my tank. Acans and sps and hammer corals do not.

Every tank is different. YMMV

For me, GFO and biopellets did more harm than good.