Cycling and Apex neptune

[Nopainnogain]

Hi guys.Im novice in this hobby and I start my tank last week but I build everything for nearly 6 months as it is almost fully automatic.My question is why the ORP on Apex is an average 170?!. My rocks has been treated in muriatic acid and bleached then soak and airstones in RO water for newrly 4 weeks. Is that normal to have such a low ORP. The very first day it was around 230-240 but since day one is keep dropping.....Any idea?

 

[SycoCell]

The ORP varies based on person to person. Some hang around 400s...Mine personally hangs around 320ish. I wouldn't worry about it - let alone while your tank is cycling. When the cycle completes, you'll see where your ORP stabilizes. When I feed my coral, my ORP drops to about 299 instantly and works it's way back up to 320ish.

 

[Etoimos]

My ORP was very similar to yours while my tank was cycling. It started in the 220~230 rand and slowly went down into the 160~180 range. After the cycle was complete and I started adding small amounts of bio-load to it, it started to raise. It is sitting at 363 as I type this. After the cycle you should also notice that your ORP and Ph are near mirror opposites most of the time.

 

[Nopainnogain]

Thank you Etoimos.What kind of bio-load did you add and how long was your cycle till the ORP start rising?

 

[LuizW13]

what's ORP?

 

[Etoimos]

Thank you Etoimos.What kind of bio-load did you add and how long was your cycle till the ORP start rising?

I just went back and studied my ORP charts, and I guess my memory was off on what I said above. The third week of my cycle my ORP was averaging 217.8. A month later it was averaging 303.67 and that was when I added my first bioload. I added 6 hermit crabs, 3 snails, 4x small ricordea, 1x plate coral, 1x Goniopora (decent size). By the third month I was averaging 319.36 and had added another largish goniopora, a smaller goniopora, toadstool leather, frogspawn, clam, electric blue hermit crab, blue tuxedo urchin, and three small (1"-2") clownfish. I'm a week shy of the four month mark and my average is 353.16.

I don't have data from the first three weeks of my tank being setup as I did not have the Apex installed at that time. But as you can see, my ORP has been raising since the beginning.

 

[Etoimos]

what's ORP?

It's complicated, but this is a good read.