Apex question

[BigT75]

Hi guys I have a couple questions on My new Apex I have the apex with the 832 bar $799 kit anyways I’ve read that the salinity probe wire should NOT be ran near or over other cords such as power cords is this true ??

Second question can someone help me understand what’s the ORP number used for ? And what is a good number range ?

Thanks again in advance

 

[DLHDesign]

First off; Welcome to R2R! Glad you found us.

I’ve read that the salinity probe wire should NOT be ran near or over other cords such as power cords is this true ??

Yes; that is true. The "salinity" measure is actually a "conductivity" measure (because; science!). If the cable is run in parallel with a power cord, it's possible that the "bleed" of the power cable can disrupt the reading from the probe (the probe itself has no "brain" to correct for this and the Apex unit is only able to interpret the signal it gets). Crossing over a power cable is generally fine. Just don't bind the wire together with anything else using zip ties or the like.
In general, I've found that if you can get it to calibrate, you'll be fine.

Second question can someone help me understand what’s the ORP number used for ? And what is a good number range ?

The value you'll get from your ORP ("Oxidation-Reduction Potential") probe isn't really a meaningful number in and of itself. By that I mean that there are a lot of factors that come into play in order for it to be where it's at, so trying to "get to it to the right spot" would be very difficult.
Rather, what you'll find is that your tank will have a given value. Over time, you'll see trends (drops with water changes, rises with Ph/temp, etc.). What you should really use this value for is just a relative health meter. If your normal range is 280-320 and you see it drop and hold in the 200 range, for example, you might want to look at the tank to see what's up.

 

[Bill_Moorman]

Also, just a heads up, the salinity probe does NOT display PPT. If you are seeing 39 on the display, it’s not 39ppt. I had issues and reached out to them.

From Apex:

“The Apex probe measures the conductivity of the water, the refractometer measures the change in the speed of light when it goes from air to water, a hydrometer measures how dense the water is. These are 3 different things you are measuring, none of them is a count of the particles of stuff in a million particles of water. All 3 will give different readings if you dissolve different things, 35.0 ppm of sodium chloride will read different than sea water with 35.0 ppm of stuff in a refractometer.


Our cond probe will not read number to number identically with milwakee's calibration or any other third party tools for checking this measurement.

If you calibrated the Cond probe properly when placed In the 53mS solution it should read around 34.8~35.2. If it did read that after you calibrated it than you successfully calibrated the probe. That's what's important. That it read 34.8~35.2 in the calibration solution from Neptune systems.

Can you put the probe back in the 53mS solution and what does it read? If it does not read within that range then calibrate the Cond probe again. If it did, than you're done.

After that, if you drop it in to a tank or any environment it will read what the conductivity is of that tank. It's not going to be the same as your refractometer, hydrometer, or anything. Our probe reads the conductivity. It's not the same.

To clarify, the conductivity probe functions by measuring the displacement of NaCl ions in the water. The Conductivity probe is not a refractometer. It's not going to read like your refractometer. This is common. It's a conductive sensing probe. Your refractometer is designed to detect specific gravity/density of all the salts in your water like KCl, MgCl, not just NaCl, but the conductivity probe will give you a closer look at the the true salinity (ppt) reading in your aquarium.

Typically most refractometers are not calibrated for Seawater, but a brine solution, thus they are reading the SG/salinity of many other salts in your water other than NaCl. So they will read slightly differently than a conductivity probe which only measures your actual NaCl concentration. Here is ant article on Reef Builders illustrating this discrepancy and points to another article discussing these differences. So it is not uncommon to see this difference between most refratometers and salinity probes.




Here is a great Salinity Calculator the converts ppt to specific gravity and Conductivity
https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/SalinityConversion.php”