should i care about ORP, conductivity, and disolved oxygen?

[skylersdad]

hi,

should i worry about monitoring ORP (what is that?), conductivity, and disolved oxygen within a 120 gal reef?

 

[kevindub]

These are nice to monitor but they are not too important unless you are using an ozone generator.

 

[Anonymous]

ORP = Oxygen Reduction Potential - Need to monitor/control this if you run ozone if not, don't bother. Other things, don't bother, not worth the extended cost on your controller

 

[fcmatt]

i am agreeing with the posts above me.

everytime i investigate your exact question i always come to the same
conclusion. i do not need it for the reasons they mentioned above. my
only benefit would be the neat factor.

 

[Anonymous]

hmmm...

yes, you should care

no, you don't necessarily need to bother

the ORP, or OXIDIZATION/REDUCTION potential of a system-is a general indication of which of the two directions (oxidizing organics, vs. reducing them) the system is more biased towards

it's connected/related to the dissolved O2 levels (but not JUST the dissolved O2 levels), and can indeed be valuable REGARDLESS of ozone shmozone usage-it's not merely a controller parameter

the best 'use' of orp is generally trend indication-for example-if a system runs at a baseline level of 320, and one day drops to 270-you have a 'warning light' that someting might be going on in the system to tilt it in the direction of favoring a reducing environment (many anaerobic bacteria are reducing bacteria, iirc)

i've seen plenty of awesomely healthy tanks w/crappy redox levels, and plenty of sickly tanks w/'good' redox levels, so, as indicated by the others above as well, don't fret about it too much

conductivity, sg, salinity are ways to differently measure the same thing

oh, ozone can be run w/out an orp controller-just need to be careful about it-very careful

 

[Anonymous]

oh, ozone can be run w/out an orp controller-just need to be careful about it-very careful

Yes careful enough not to wipe out all the sharks in a particular public aquarium's exhibit

 

[Anonymous]

hi,

should i worry about monitoring ORP (what is that?), conductivity, and disolved oxygen within a 120 gal reef?

No.