What is ORP?

So I have had my tanks for a few years and I'm looking into getting myself some early Christmas presents and I was looking at monitors and controllers and I keep seeing monitors for ORP but nothing explaining what it is or how to control it? Is it something I should have been checking all along?

 

Good question:
ORP and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

 

It is something that most people use to control Ozone with

 

ORP or REDOX
a measurement in Millivolts that indicates the waters ability to break down / oxydise wastes

knowing what your tanks ORP measurement is, serves no purpose unless you have an ability to control/ affect it

Ozone or O3 - 3 molecules of oxygen combined can be regulated using a ORP controller

basically if the REDOX or ORP goes below a pre set figure Ozone would be injected into the system, and when the number reaches the pre set level, the Ozone generator is turned off

Otty shows his on the controller parameters above - His ORP is 317 (when I typed this) and his Ozone, O3 is off

If the ORP drops below the level he has set on his controller the O3 generator will start again and display ON until his target pre set is reached

to answer your question "is it something you should be checking all along?"
IMHO - no , you can run a succesful reef tank without the need for Ozone and a ORP controller and many people never progress to doing things at that level

but I do know, if I ever wanted to run a tank full of SPS like Octopus Belgrade
(for one example, no offence to anyone else with SPS dominated reefs) has on the show off your fish tank section - then an ORP controller and Ozone would certainly be on my list of equipement I would want on that set up

IMHO - its something you can progress to depending on what you want to achieve in the hobby




Steve

 

Well stated Steve!!!

 

His ORP is 321 now. Oh giddy! I could play this game all day long! I SOOO want a nice controller