FAQ: Should I turn off my ozone filter when dosing Seachem Reef Plus™? Will it affect my redox?

Yes, you should turn the ozone off, it will destroy the product fairly quickly. The organics that are in Reef Plus™ are beneficial (such as vitamin C, B₁₂ etc), however most of these beneficial organics are reducing agents (by their very nature) and as such result in the redox level dropping in your system. So while redox is generally a good indicator of water "cleanliness" it can also often be misleading because beneficial organics can also cause a redox drop. Any reducing agent is going to be destroyed in the presence of a strong oxidizer (such as ozone) thus that is why you should turn off ozone while dosing with Reef Plus™. Also, in general we don't recommend using ozone on a regular basis because it typically can do more harm than good. This is mainly because it is does too good a job at cleaning up the water, it destroys every beneficial vitamin and amino acid in the water as well as all of the waste you want destroyed. Thus you end up with a nearly sterile tank in which not much is going to thrive without the addition of products like Reef Plus™... but if you keep using the ozone, it's just going to destroy the components of Reef Plus™ as well. Another problem that can occur is that ozone can also produce toxic compounds in the water. For example, chloride can be oxidized to chlorine, bromide to bromine, iodide to iodine; all of the non-charged "ine" halogens are highly toxic. All of this is dependent on what "level" you run the ozone at, but in general ozone does not discriminate between "good" and "bad" organics and at any level has the capacity to convert harmless halogen ions into deadly diatomic halogens.