Does anyone in the USA currently use ozone? If so, can you tell me who the supplier of your equipment was? There seems to be a lot of ozone use in the UK and Australia, but not so much here in the states. If you could post a picture of your set up and/or explain how it is incorporated into your filtration, I would really appreciate that too, thank you! (and please, let's not turn this into an "ozone is dangerous and therefore bad" thread. There are plenty of those already on the forum)
Hello Angie,
I'm in Australia so I can't help with suppliers but I've been researching ozone for a while as I've already decided to implement ozone once I complete other aspects of filtration.
Firstly, its important to know what you want to achieve from ozone (setting objectives) otherwise its very difficult to plan for and impossible to measure improvement(s).
In simple basics, ozone for ponds is best generated by corona discharge (not UV) due to the amounts required.
The amount of ozone needed can be guestimated by the amount of daily food provided - not pond size, flow rate or fish biomass.
Ozone generators will need a boosted oxygen source or dried air. Dried air can be as simple as a silica gel chamber or an automated air drier. However an ozone generator is only 20% efficient using air.
Boosted oxygen source can be from an oxygen concentrator or compressed oxygen gas cylinders.
The way ozone is introduced can vary depending on your objectives. Often a venturi to suck in ozone enriched air followed by a static mixer. Or a dedicated ozone contact chamber. More fancy ozone systems have an ORP meter to monitor and control ozone production in real time but its still a good idea to have an ozone removal system before returning to pond.
The ozone generator, ozone introduction, excess ozone removal are worthy of detailed discussions each so I wont get into much detail here.
A turn key system (often used in aquaculture) is quite expensive - $12,000 +
In my case, I'm chasing sparkling clear water which requires tannin removal with additional benefit of floculating very fine particles that can be removed by a 60 micron drum. Disease control for me will be handled by over sized UV. Actually I'm hoping my UV will destroy tannins but I've yet to find out.
I've decided its more economical to buy a very basic ozone generator that is 5 times bigger (to achieve 20% efficiency) and air dry with silica gel. If that proves inadequate, I can add an oxygen concentrator afterwards but they are slightly noisy. I'm going to mix ozone in a side loop using a rainwater tank as mixing/contact chamber and remove excess ozone by slow return through a plant filter. The ozone will be pushed through with an air pump (air pump > air dry > ozone generator > mixing tank > plant bed (removal) > pond. So very simple and low tech which gives me more comfort and the risk of over dosing i reduced by system design.
There are several variations so you need to know a little to decide what is best for you.
There is a USA aquarium grade ozone system - posideon 400 with an automated dryer that could produce 1.2mg / hr ozone maximum and it might be economical enough to buy 2 units? Shipping and support wasnt appropriate for me.
All my info is from comprehensive research and discussion with suppliers. No real life experience yet.
Thanks for your reply Aquaholic. I hope you'll post pictures of your pond and your ozone system when you get it built! $12K is more than I can spend for this component, I didn't realize they were that expensive but I'll also look into the Posideon 400 unit.
The prices seem to increase exponentially with higher ozone production capabilities. So 4 times the price if you want double the output.This makes it tricky because if you buy an undersized unit initially but require more ozone later, you have to bite the bullet and buy another larger one or try to run two smaller units at the same time. My best guess calculations indicate I will need 3 g/hr ozone.
And its easy to kill fish at higher ozone levels.
I'm intending to buy a cheap basic but high output (30 ~ 40 gm / hour) unit for about $1000 shipped from china so not expecting any warranty or support. I need to get some real life experience in order to improve so the first unit I buy is never going to be my final one. Due to the sentimental value of my fish, I'd never rely on electronic sensors to dictate production safe levels.
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