Anyone know anything about ORP? HELP!

[fmelindy]

I just recently bought an ORP monitor to use with an Aquamedic denitrator unit and I just decided to measure the ORP in my display tank. It was only around 80!!! My understanding of ORP is that it needs to be somewhere betwenn 200 and 400. Shouldn't my tank readings be incompatible with life? How can I raise my ORP levels, or should I even? I wasn't expecting levels that low and here's the funny part - the levels in the denitrator (which isn't even outputting to the main system yet until I figure it out) are identical! What's going on???

 

[organism]

do you have a skimmer? it seems like your water's not getting oxygenated enough somewhere along the line, if your orp sensor's calibrated right...

 

[fmelindy]

Yeah, I have a red sea skimmer and my monitor I just received today - it's a milwaukee brand and it says its "self-calibrating".