No, I have not used an ozone generator. I've used a dehumidifier before though to get rid of molds and fungi. It really helped clear up a roaring infection.

OZone is a powerful oxidizer! It will eat plastic, rubber, metal ect! I would think that it would oxidize the nutrients!

"I would think that it would oxidize the nutrients!"

Only if it's on full time. For example, I just ordered a small scale ozone water gadget.

If I ozonate the water in my plastic watering can, then water the plants in my greenhouse, in theory any bacteria or mold spores on the surfaces will be rendered inert.

Within 20 minutes, ozone bubbles out of water or reverts to normal oxygen.

"OZone is a powerful oxidizer! It will eat plastic, rubber, metal ect! "

As for plastics, UV from the sun is much more damaging than Ozone.

Rubber outgasses over time and becomes brittle, metal rusts when in contact with normal oxygen, all with no help needed from Ozone.

The only noticable effect from running ozone air cleaners in my house is dark spots on the walls.

The negative ions attach to pollutants in the air. This breaks their ability to hang suspended and they fall out of solution.

Then the pollutants are attracted to any ground state, even a nail that's been painted over looks attractive.

I'd rather wash my walls twice a year than breathe that soot.

I think H2O2 will be much more effective and less expensive for controlling molds and fungus in your nutrient solution.

ozone is bad for you to be in contact with (carcinogen maybe?) what type of crop in what type of system are you having fungus problems with? the only hydro growers i know using 02 generators are using it to control the smell of the rather pungent plants they are growing ;) ~Ryan

I posted this question 11 months ago.

I chose this forum since I thought you hydro folks would have the latest techniques.

And I did find a hydro guy from Australia that thinks it's a good idea, but he hadn't tried it.

I have a small greenhouse and the soil in my garden is infected with a bacterial canker.

Claviobacter Michigensis spp. Michigensis. It kills tomato plants. Slowly.

Back in the bad old days, there were toxic fumigants that could be pumped into the ground to kill such an infection.

I was looking for a less toxic solution.

Ozone will kill bacteria if it's in contact for a few minutes. And in twenty minutes, it degrades to regular oxygen.

Thus it doesn't persist in the environment. It does the job and goes away.

There are people who go around badmouthing ozone constantly, but I've never seen any proof of their claims.

Stuff like "ozone anesthetizes the Trigeminal Nerve so you don't know it's hurting you".

??

I tried seriously talking to one of these folks a few weeks ago. I suggested a few simple experiments to determine if their claims were true.

She refused to talk about the subject and repeated what she'd been told as gospel.

She literally said Bill Gates didn't have enough money to pay her to do an experiment to validate her claims.

Okay, whatever !

I prefer to think for myself.

And if I'm not IN the room when the ozone machine is running, I don't see how it could hurt me.

I am curious about the effectiveness of ozone generators in combatting mold and mildewe which has built up in a house I have been working on. Would it be like fumigating for insects? I would only generate the ozone while no one was in the house

Here is a link that might be useful: Vertical Gardens

The company I bought my ozone gen from has a super-powered version.

It's NOT to be used when you're in the room.

You put it in a basement infested with odors or mold, push the button and leave.

Even the model I have has a sanitize button. Whatever the comfort zone you've got it set on, you push the button and it goes to full power for an hour.

My sister used one to clean up a house that had just been painted. Killed those paint fumes in a weekend.

She also used it in her basement. A DIRT basement !

I looked around that basement in awe. From the style of the wooden posts, I'd guess the building was 80 years old at least.

A pitiful attempt had been made to control moisture by piling up stone everywhere.

I said, "well, the first thing you need to do is get that stone out of here, jack up the ceiling, and one 10 foot section at a time put in modern footers of concrete".

That didn't go over well.

The air was so bad down there I couldn't stand to breathe it.

A few days of full power started to clear that up.

I don't know what the professionals use, but I suppose it might be possible to inject ozone in the walls to kill an established mold infection.

Ozone generators for killing mold and Fungus is used in Canada and the US. Medallion Healthy Homes is a service provider using high levels of Ozone. They use a system of generators that produce only clean Ozone. There are two types of Ozone generators(Carona Dicharge and UV. Carona Discharge creates ozone when it passes air between two electrical fields. The carona discharge creates nitrous along with ozone. The nitrous will cause damage to plastics. The UV system is clean and causes no colateral damage.
No people, pets or living plants are allowed when doing high level shock treatments. If you use ozone at low levels around .05 parts per million it will keep your air frsh and clean.
Ozone will kill germs, virus's, mold, fungus. Ozone will eliminate smoke odors and pet odors.

I am a retail hydro store owner, I am telling you I have gotten a few for a customer who had problems with pythium, he runs the ozone pump continuously and has had no problems. I am not advertising here so I am limited to what I can say but there are ozone pumps on ebay by enaly that are cheap and work great. Ozone in high concentration can harm you. It can make your lungs bleed and you will drown in your own blood. But it has to be highly concentrate, Ozone in the water from this pump is not strong enough to do damage to you. Unless you are dunking your head into the water and drowning yourself LOL. I used to work for a company that used an ozone generator to kill smells in homes. We had to make the people leave the house run the machines for 24hrs, leave notices on all entrances, and come back wearing a gas mask open all windows and doors and let it eevacuate for at least 20-30 minutes before anyone could enter. I doubt we went through all that for nothing but it was an industrial strength generator so it produced mass amounts of ozone. There are small units for air that people run all day in offices/homes with no ill effects. All in all it is a safe idea for cleaning your water, only problem is it can kill beneficial bacteria and fungus as well. So if you need to use a product like subculture or Voodoo Juice/Pirahna to add these back to the water after ozonation if you only use it once to clean. Hope this helped and didn't ramble too much,

Paul

Using ozone for algae control intrigued me enough that I bought an ozone generator and OPR (Oxidation Reduction Potential) meter to test the idea. Use a 5-gallon bucket of tap water and initially starting with an OPR reading of 220 I ran the ozone generator through a bubbler stone for 90 minute. At the end of 60 minutes I noticed the reading leveling off at about 550 and never got above that after 90 minutes. I suspect the RH (relative humidity) in my area (which is high) had something to do with it and maybe the temperature of the water.
I never got to that magic 650 mV number needed for disinfection. The pH at 550 was 8.5. For best efficiency the manufacturer recommends a desiccant filter for the ozone generator inlet. I think I'll try that next.

"For best efficiency the manufacturer recommends a desiccant filter for the ozone generator inlet"

Yes, I recall reading that in my research also. The industrial strength systems always use a dessicant chamber to purge moisture from the input air.

This wouldn't be as necessary with a UV system, but a UV system strong enough to do this job would be HUGE. And need the bulb replaced quite frequently.

The Corona Discharge method is sensitive to moisture due to the mechanics of the method used.

The only suggestion I can make is that with an open bucket, you're bleeding O3 into the air.

Ozone apparently isn't very soluble in water. When I bubble O3 into my water jugs, it tastes pretty fizzy right away.

But the gas starts to bubble out, so I cap the jug and stick it in the fridge.

This helps hold the gas in, I think. Even so, a few hours later the water tastes normal as the O3 has broken down into O2.

The advantage being that now all the bacteria are dead, oxidized.

So, my sketch for my water purifier project calls for recirculating the water constantly.

Pumping the water around a loop, through the ozone injector, into the storage vessel, then back, insures that ozone stays dissolved as much as possible.

I can imagine tapping off your solution at the bottom of a tank, running it through the ozone injector, and looping it back to the top of the tank.

If you can close the tank for cleaning, that might make a huge improvement on gas retention.

Hi JKirk. Your recirculation idea is a great idea. I'm going to try it on one of my airlift buckets. Thanks.

Trying JKIRK's suggestion I tried to get an OPR reading of 650 using one of my airlift buckets.
Starting with a tap water reading of 220 it took about 50 minutes to reach 650. RH was 46%, temperature about 85 deg.

Well, I guess THAT water is sterile !

It would be a nice capper to have a microscope handy. Check the water and LOOK, no wiggly things !

I'll try this technique going forward prior to adding the nutrient concentrate and see if this makes a difference in the algae growth. If nothing else this should delay the appearance of algae. Thanks again JKIRK for the suggestion.

Jkirk and Hank, I like your out of the box thinking. I have used ozone in some of my projects. I offer some advice.
1)You will want to look into HDPE tubs/buckets/fittings, and tyvek tubing, or you will have bag off gassing from the plastics.
2)Algae are living organisms that adapt genetically to a constant level of 03. UV or algicide works better.
3)650mv is pretty high for plant application. Perhaps you will see better results @ 350.
4)Foliar applications will leave tissue damage.

Keep on experimenting!

Would periodic flushes with ozone help prevent the algae from adapting to it?

If they adapt to a constant level, don't use a contant level.

Hi JKirk.

Maintaining 650 is not easy. The generator will need to be run continuously. Once the solution reaches 650 and the generator removed it only take a few minutes for the ORP to drop to pre-sterilization levels.

I was thinking about using this method to sterilize CT (compost tea). I know I can kill the microbes in the CT but not sure what affect it will have on the nutrients in the tea.

Shocking the solution with ozone, at least 0.4 mg/liter for about 20 minutes will kill most organisms.

Since most nutrients are fairly basic, a short term treatment might be okay, and not damage them.

Are you sterilizing before making the compost tea?

Because I was under the impression that half of the greatness of CT comes from inoculating the soil with healthy micro-organisms.

The sterilization would come after the 2-4 days it takes for the CT to become nutrient rich from the microbial action.

Hopefully all that's left is a great nutrient solution and a bunch of dead microbes. The microbes will need to be removed otherwise they will decay and produce toxins.

I'm speculating the microbes and other large organic compounds can be removed with a protein skimmer.

What do you think?

I've never heard of natural decaying bacteria creating toxins.

LIVE bacteria can create toxins, of course. That's why we want to kill them.

The "toxins" I referred to are ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, etc., which in sufficient quantity can be harmful. The aerobic microbes produces "wastes" that is good for plants otherwise why use CT in the first place. However, as a nutrient solution CT has a big disadvantage and that is what happens to the microbes over time in a hydroponic setup. The microbes having run out of food or oxygen will die and eventually decay. The idea is to sterilize the CT and remove the microbes after it had time to produce a good nutrient rich solution.
Now is this organic "soup", now free of microbes, just as good as an equivalent inorganic solution? I don't know the answer to that question.

Generally, I buy the ozone units from Shenzhen PDM-Electronic.Co.,LTD, then I assebly a ozonier by myself. It will cost much. This company' ozone is very stable with the good price.

www.pdm-electronic.com

Ozone generator types are for mini handling, portable, carriable, pushable,etc. for air and water ozone, withe the output for 200mg/hr to 120g/hr, even bigger 1000g/hr. You can choose the correct ozone unit to assembly.
Shenzhen PDM-Electronic.Co.,LTD has almost all type ozone units. The ozone cell is with ozone output can be choosen from 20mg/hr, 50mg/hr to 1g/hr for air cool, 10g/hr, 20g/hr, 40g/hr for all air cool, 20g/hr, 25g/hr, to 1000g/hr for water cool. The types of ozone cell is stainless steeltube, quartz glass, ceramic slice, ceramic tube, ceramic board, enamel tube, etc. AC110V, AC220V, DC12.

You can contact them by email, sales@pdm-electronic.com

Here is a link that might be useful: jenny

Hi. Ozone is quite effective in eliminating mold and bacteria, so I think you should try one. You can check the chart on the website I link to, it explains various technologies and the problems they combat best.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ozone air purifiers

Ozone Generators may emit ozone which harmful gas would damage lung tissues. The more effective purifier system is
HEPA filter system.

Here is a link that might be useful: HEPA air purifier

aprint
As the HEPA air purifier salesman you are, you completely misunderstood what the a "Ozone Generator" is for in hydroponic systems. A Ozone Generator is not for purifying the air, it's to oxygenate the water. A HEPA filter does not supply dissolved oxygen to water. It filters particles from the air.

I just purchased the Cuisine Clean veggie cleaner (ozone generating veggie cleaner). I mostly did it because I love, love, love fresh food and I even want to start gardening next year and an agitating ozone generating machine seemed like the best system for cleaning my food. When I first saw the unit, I suspected that the basket was made of plastic (which I usually avoid), but read that ozone eats plastic. I searched for a plastic free cleaner that agitates the vegetables, but couldn't find any with a decent price. So I took a chance and purchased this one and sure enough, the basket was indeed made of plastic.

Here is the big question: Do I need to be concerned about phthalates and bpa because of the plastic in my unit or will the ozone destroy these toxins before my food absorbs it? If I am endangering my health because of these toxins, will rinsing them in a colander or glass bowl (after running them through the cycles) get rid of these toxins? I don't mind rinsing them, but if I have to wash them again, I wonder if it's worth the trouble.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm otherwise happy with the product. I bought some organic lemons yesterday that I cleaned with the unit. After one cleaning cycle, it turns out there was a detergent or some cruddy foaming mess that was on the lemons that the machine removed BEAUTIFULLY! I had to put it through a second cycle to get it all off, but now I have nice clean lemons. I just can't shake the fear of petroleum produced toxins in my food. Should I be worried?

I would not worry about the ozone and bpa. All of us have that chemical in our blood already; it's impossible to avoid in modern society.

Ozone is 03. Common oxygen is 02. The third oxygen atom is not stable. It will jump off and react with the first thing it can. Typically, the first thing it hits to react with is an anaerobic organism, which from our perspective are mostly bad, like mold, mildew, fungus, and bad bacteria. Your vegetable washer's ozone will find some sort of germ to react with and turn itself to o2 long before it is able to degrade the plastic. When you read about ozone degrading plastic, that's in a sealed environment. Ozone will cause problems to both people and plants if it builds up faster than it can shed that extra Oxygen atom. Then it starts to react with things you don't want it to react with.

Regarding the original question of using an ozone sterilizer in a hydro reservoir, it's like using peroxide. It kills all your bacteria, good and bad. That's good if you have an excess of bad bacteria such as pythium. But for a healthy reservoir with a good bacterial balance, it's not something you need. There's no benefit to an already healthy system.

We are the ozone generator manufacturer. Ozone air dissolves in water to make ozone water. Ozone air and ozone water can purify air or treat water, disinfection and sterilization. But when you choose it, you must know the room size you will purify or how much water you will treat in an hour, base on such information, then choose correct ozone output of ozone generator. When you use ozone generator, you have to take care for your safe, because ozone above PPM data will be danger to our body. Any detailed information, you can check our home page www.pdm-electronic.com OR you can write to me: pdmelectronic.com
I am glad to help you.

Here is a link that might be useful: pdmelectronic

Anyone considering using ozonation should consider that ozone is quite harsh and may react with your manganese to precipitate out and subsequently lost as a plant nutrient if you use it in a nutrient solution instead of just to disinfect water before use.

Huanying to the forum pdm. Does ozonation break down chloramines? If so, with the ammonia go into solution as ammonium nitrogen and what of the Chloride, will it go into solution as a salt ion instead of any being released as chlorine air?

While an ozone generator in which a hobby gardener has to run around worrying about lethal Ozone production sounds like a cool thing to do, wouldn't you agree it is completely a waste of money and energy for hydroponic hobbyists? Like Cohl and others said above, all we need is a little hydrogen peroxide on an "as-needed" basis if we want an ocassional harsh disinfectant that somewhat damages roots and kill good microbes too, which can help a healthy system be more robust in performance. And if you happen to live in the Los Angeles basis the air is already well ozonated for free, good to know ozone water is free during rush hour ;-)