Can someone "dumb" down ORP for me?

[am3gross]

Thanks everyone for the replies, it really is helping. As mentioned my ORP is on the rise, as last check was 194.

So my takeaways from this topic thus far...

Don't worry about this function of the Apex, however, keep an eye on it just in case there may be a big swing which may be telling me that I need to look at something.

Water changes will drop this reading down, so don't be alarmed when this happens.

If I ever start using Ozone, come back and start this thread back up!!

I really want to thank everyone for the replies, such a great community that is willing to teach others, even us "older, slower" fellas!

Mike

 

[Emerson]

Also...I've found "baseline" ORP changes based on the brand of salt mix you use. When I was using Red Sea Black Bucket I would get ORP readings steady in the low 400s. With HW Reefer and Brightwell NeoMaraine it's in the low 300s. Whenever I do a water change I get a good drop that builds back to the baseline over a day. If something big dies in your tank, ORP level will drop.

For me, it's an indicator for me if my wife is feeding frozen food when I travel, which I do frequently. I get a 30-40 point drop putting in a cube of mysis shrimp or comparable chunk of LRS Reef Frenzy. It's a big enough blip that I can see on Fusion when I check in on my tank.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

In fact, in a biologically very active medium, ORP reading is a very expensive way to know things by the experience of using it, things you also may know by the experience of visually following up and watching your tank. The oxidation and reduction potential, ORP, will change constantly but the ORP reading ( probe + meter) will not follow what actually is happening. For example, having sudden drastic changes in the oxygen content it may take a full day before something may change in the results of ORP reading, depending on the situation and the quality of the measuring equipment. ( ref: MB CMF De Haes 2017 ) But how you may know the change is caused by drastic changes in the oxygen content? I think the signs already will have shown without ORP reading.

 

[John08007]

Without reading all of these posts, the higher the number the cleaner the tank. Watching BRS videos I never calibrated my apex orp probe, but I run my tank st 350. I use it to control my ozone going into my skimmer. Ryan makes sense that with the cost of calibration solution it doesn't make sense to do so.

I do see a drastic change in my tank clarity since running ozone and raising my orp.

You mentioned throwing chems to raise it, I don't know of any chems that will raise orp, except possibly carbon.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

ORP reading can be any ORP value if the probe and meter are not calibrated. ORP reading in mv is logarithmic.
The tolerated deviation of an ORP measurement with a lab-quality ORP meter is + - 5mV, being logarithmic this is huge.
Using the same way of thinking, not calibrating the ORP probe, why using ORP for controlling things? It seems not very wise to use ORP reading for managing processes in a live support system.
Even with a lot of experience one has to be able to compare the result of the reading with a certain standard situation.
If the reading must not correspond to a certain standard, how one may make good use of it?
Running a tank at 350mv or 380mv makes a huge difference in ORP. If the reading is not to a certain standard what does it represent? Why using ORP reading?

 

[brandon429]

Randy / Taricha / MN team I have this question to help me define ORP impacts in our deep cleaning threads


obviously the unit of measure is subject to paradox...peroxide additions (oxidizers) that lower the reading, new salt water that lowers it for reasons Randy mentioned

ORP shift towards what we’ve been told as bad/acidic when currents slow and detritus piles/ organic stores build up


what is the expected impact to ORP given a complete sandbed change out for all new sand, rocks jetted out with saltwater so the pores eject all waste vs having a notable casting cloud of waste before we cleaned

how would removing as much organic waste as humanly possible all in one pass affect the ORP trending for a given tank that gets rip cleaned, can there be no prediction whatsoever on changes? can there be an initial drop due to 100% new water we use, but then a sustained rebound due to removed organics?

if ORP is tied to organic reserves and flow and states of decay vs production then something must be changing, we are attacking those aspects to the core as harshly and as thoroughly as possible. So far nobody ran ORP before and after, so I am curious as to expected predictions once someone does

 

[brandon429]

Based on the collective readings for cause/effect on good vs bad ORP readings in reef tanks, I have surmised that having the lowest possible waste stores / organics and having the highest possible flow+ surface area contact not bathed in algae or scum will lend the strongest ORP condition for the reef (given all other constants, same water brand etc) after we just deep cleaned it.



if that is grossly wrong I’ll quit typing it. Adding fish food and then it drops ORP during decay and transition is 100% what I’m talking about per above though, it seems adding in proteins to eventually get deaminated into acids is going to impact ORP.


rip cleans remove loads of heterotrophs emitting waste acids via digestion on leftover nutrients in mud waste, and they remove oxygen competing stores of organic waste (COD and biological oxygen demand as well) with bacteria at the same time. I cannot fathom how the presence of that mass would increase ORP and how removing it all to leave a reef this clean could fail to raise ORP

that’s a post rip cleaned reef
(apologize friends for the pic credit I lost the original thread and we are so many deep cleans on file I cannot recall but our thread has this somewhere buried in it)

every interstice is open and exchanging and they were plugged up bigtime before the storm and complete water change


surely the trending ORP must be higher in the new setup??

 

[Paul B]

I have read articles over the past 4 hours, Randy is a super smart dude! However, I dont understand any of it.

I don't understand it either. My advice is like I did. Find your garbage can and place your ORP probe in there next to 95% of the rest of the useless stuff in this hobby and go out and have a nice dinner.
Try the Pino Noir.

 

[FortLivingRoom]

Without reading all of these posts, the higher the number the cleaner the tank. Watching BRS videos I never calibrated my apex orp probe, but I run my tank st 350. I use it to control my ozone going into my skimmer. Ryan makes sense that with the cost of calibration solution it doesn't make sense to do so.

I do see a drastic change in my tank clarity since running ozone and raising my orp.

You mentioned throwing chems to raise it, I don't know of any chems that will raise orp, except possibly carbon.

Read the other posts because Randy Holmes-Farley points out higher does not mean better.

 

[saltyfins]

what's ORP?

 

[brandon429]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-12/rhf/feature/index.php

 

[Belgian Anthias]

what's ORP?

Is a measurement in millivolts of a chemical's propensity to oxidize or reduce another chemical.

The standard redox potential E0 is measured in volts with respect to the standard hydrogen electrode which has a potential of 0 volts at 25 ° C and 1 bar H2 pressure. The concentration - actually the activity - of the ions participating in the reaction is 1 molar.

One may also calculate the potential of chemicals present.

Researchers find that when calculating the potential, the result never corresponds to the measurement and in many cases does not even approach it.

We must therefore state that the values given have only an educational value and not a scientific one! OscarVanVlijmen2002-09)

ref: https://home.kpn.nl/vanadovv/RedPot.html


ORP level can also be viewed as the level of bacterial activity of the water as there is a direct link between ORP level and Coliform count in water.

 

[brandon429]

That’s neat to know about colony counts BA I had not heard that directly, but it’s strongly inferred from snippets in posts and outcome patterns it seems as well. With the way paradoxes pop up in reefing chemistry I wasn’t sure. intestinal coliforms not likely in reefing but perhaps other types of bacteria can be included as well?

 

[John08007]

Read the other posts because Randy Holmes-Farley points out higher does not mean better.

I know with my probe without it being calibrated at 350 the water looks clear, corals are doing good. I'm sure I could get the number higher but I can't see the water looking much clearer and I'm sure my corals would be stressed.

 

[Cory]

I think of orp as an indication of something bad or good. Goes up its good usually. Goes down its bad usually. Orp represents change of events. Weather good or bad is hard to say though. Its just reading changes of chemical reactions imo.

 

[brandon429]

thank you for closure on the 35% peroxide thread that was a good run there

 

[Cory]

Pls update your 35% peroxide thread we need closure man

I did lol. Something is missing?

 

[Montiman]

I thought I'd chime in. I am an Ozone user. I would not have started measuring ORP except for starting ozone. I would not even look at ORP for 1-2 weeks and then start watching it. It is important to know what the ORP is in your unique system. I have had a couple times where my ORP alarm has notified me of an important problem.

Once ORP dropped below 20 and I found that my bio pellet reactor was clogged. After unclogging and cleaning the reactor the ORP returned to normal. Another time my copper band decided to start eating a football sized clam. The clam died even though the copper band didn't eat it at all and ORP dropped. After removing the dead clam and doing a water change ORP returned to normal. Another time I had a 1 foot clown tang swim into an urchin and die. Orp dropped, Apex alerted me and I removed the fish stopping the pollution.

The inaccurate oversimplification of ORP is that it is the balance of oxidizers to reducers in the water. On average oxidizers clean things, think Ozone, Hydrogen Peroxide, or OxyClean. Reducers are generally dirty primarily various organic compounds. If ORP suddenly drops it can be a sign something is dead or dying. If ORP suddenly spikes it can be a sign that some oxidizer is being overdosed.

Any chemist will tell you this is a complete oversimplification and it is, but it is useful and monitoring ORP can alert you to problems.

 

[Cory]

I thought I'd chime in. I am an Ozone user. I would not have started measuring ORP except for starting ozone. I would not even look at ORP for 1-2 weeks and then start watching it. It is important to know what the ORP is in your unique system. I have had a couple times where my ORP alarm has notified me of an important problem.

Once ORP dropped below 20 and I found that my bio pellet reactor was clogged. After unclogging and cleaning the reactor the ORP returned to normal. Another time my copper band decided to start eating a football sized clam. The clam died even though the copper band didn't eat it at all and ORP dropped. After removing the dead clam and doing a water change ORP returned to normal. Another time I had a 1 foot clown tang swim into an urchin and die. Orp dropped, Apex alerted me and I removed the fish stopping the pollution.

The inaccurate oversimplification of ORP is that it is the balance of oxidizers to reducers in the water. On average oxidizers clean things, think Ozone, Hydrogen Peroxide, or OxyClean. Reducers are generally dirty primarily various organic compounds. If ORP suddenly drops it can be a sign something is dead or dying. If ORP suddenly spikes it can be a sign that some oxidizer is being overdosed.

Any chemist will tell you this is a complete oversimplification and it is, but it is useful and monitoring ORP can alert you to problems.

What ozonizer are you using? Im 3 ozonizers in and each one keeps breaking....

 

[Montiman]

Right now I have a Clearwater Tech but it is about 8 years old and the output is declining. I want to upgrade to an Ultralife.