ORP - What does it do and how does one benefit from it.
Denitrification is as natural as nitrification. It depends on the level of (in our case) dissolved oxygen present within the water column itself. For the case of a denitrator, very low level or no dissolved oxygen must be achieve for it to work.
What is ORP? It stands for Oxidation Reduction Potential and the measuring unit is denoted as mV. Sometimes it is also known as pollution index. In our case, it is the measure of the relative oxidizing power of the water. Sounds simple? It is, perhaps, the single most complicated chemical feature that aquarists will typically encounter! I will try to explain as simply as possible and how it can be applied on the denitrator.
In our aquarium, just imagine it is a battlefield comprises of oxidizers and reducers. ORP is the measurement of who is winning and who is losing. We cannot have only either one of them as the livestock will be very very dead.
The majority of oxidisers are O2 and the minorities are O3 (ozone), H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide), 3O2 (triplet oxygen) and other variety of oxygen radicals with also include chlorine and chloramine. The oxidisers need to get electrons and they get them from the reducers.
The reducers are: inorganic compounds such as ammonia, iodide and sulfide. Vitamins C is a very powerful reducing agent.
The reducers come from fish food, metabolic waste products, the breakdown of dead organisms, and certain additives put into the aquarium. The reducers all want to get rid of electrons, and they virtually throw them at the oxidizers.
To be continue.....
