在家庭水族馆中使用臭氧远非一个新想法。实际上,20多年前,公共水族馆和业余爱好者通常都使用臭氧。十多年前,我尝试了在课堂系统上使用臭氧。但是,我投资的系统质量非常差。我们有两个探针在不到一年的时间内失败,监视器表示我们的发电机也未能继续产生气体。不用说,我最多经历了不同的效果,我退出了臭氧。
Fast forward to three years ago. My students and I added a mangrove-swamp-themed aquarium to our reef display system. As the mangroves began to grow and macroalgae filled the spaces between their roots, we noticed a decline in water clarity in our reef display. The decline was, by no means, massive, yet it was certainly noticeable. After careful research and communication with several public aquaria, we found ourselves once again considering the use of ozone on our system.
For the remainder of this article and in two future installments, my students and I will share our reasoning and research regarding our decision to add ozone and our short-term results. In this installment, we’ll identify what ozone is and what we hoped to achieve in adding it to our system. Installment two will delve into how we selected our system and how we are using ozone. The final installment will focus on how to stay safe while using ozone and why it may not be the best option for every application.
Ozone defined
So what is ozone? Ozone (O3), a form of the element oxygen, is most commonly created when intense electrical discharges occur (lightning strikes to you and me). The chemical nature of the molecule allows it to accumulate in our upper atmosphere, but we also create ozone as a pollutant at the surface where it can become an unwelcome part of smog.
Why add ozone to aquaria?
If ozone is a toxic part of smog, why in the world would we add it to our aquaria? The short answer is that in small, controlled doses, ozone has the potential to be quite helpful. In our case, we were focused on water clarity and discoloration. Ozone excels at breaking down the organic molecules responsible for tinting and fouling our water. Within days of adding ozone, our water was noticeably clearer—so much so that we actually had some corals experience minor bleaching.
次要好处是减少cyanobacteria. This was not expected, and we are not completely certain we can credit ozone alone for this outcome, as the aquarium is far more complex than most of us would ever imagine. Nevertheless, the few red, gooey patches we had are largely gone.
The sterilization myth
臭氧还拥有或过去有很多错误的利益主张。关于在家庭水族馆中使用臭氧的最常见神话是它将对水进行消毒。当我们对此主张更加仔细地思考时,这根本没有意义。如果水确实无菌,那么什么都将还活着。水族馆化学家建议的非常低的剂量太低,无法杀死大多数细菌或停用所有病毒。直接接触臭氧的细菌细胞被杀死,但肿块通常保持不变。换句话说,您的好细菌不会因添加臭氧而受到严重威胁。这也意味着,仅臭氧不会摆脱坦克的致病性疾病暴发。
收看第2部分!
In our next installment, we’ll look at how we use ozone and how we selected our system (Clearing the Air on Ozone: Part 2).
图片来源:大卫·鲍尔斯