Effects of UVc on ORP with Titanium Oxidizing Hydroxyl. TMC Vecton Titan UV

Does it increase ORP?

Recently, we’ve been asked to address some information about the effects of ORP with the use of a Titanium sterilizer. Does it increase ORP or maintain/decrease it like a Polycarbonate sterilizer?

Usually, when we promote UVc for disease protection and not just clarification we state that with the added benefits of zapping algae, bacteria, virus, and parasites the UVc zaps or converts oxidation aiding in maintaining or even lowing ORP within a range. Lowering oxidative stress. These oxidizers that are eliminating the electrical charge needed for osmoregulation. ORP is basically the millivolt reading of the water like a car battery.

Now there is idea of increasing electrical charge (ORP) past a normal or “healthy range” to a degree for disease protection, which is how Ozone has been used in aquarium care. Certain medications or conditioners will increase the ORP to know disease treatment. But we do have known ranges of ORP we believe is best for health already.

But let me say this technology is already in use in industrial applications for clearing chemicals in water ways at manufactures. In the industrial world this tech is now as UV AOP. Advanced Oxidizing Process, when a reduction and oxidization can take place. The corporation Nasa uses UVAOP, because it’s a “freely Oxidizer.

Please note all information presented is copyrighted by American Aquarium Products and needs premission to use and must be sited.

So we set up some testing. Everything effects the ORP Redox mV reading of water with o2, temp, lighting, water changes, and more all constantly effecting water making ORP more of an “in motion type of reading”. Where in many aquariums there’s a lot of trending up without enough of the trending down to create a maintained balance in an ORP range. It’s technically a difficult measure to get accurate, but the concept and trends are NOT to understand. The test we put in place was a simple one we’ve done in the past. We took TMC Vecton and Titan UV sterilizers and applied an oxidizer and measured the color and mV effect. We also had a plan water control and an oxidizer control.

Our basis is that when there’s oxidizers (increase in mv) in water the UV will reduce the oxidizers to a maintained state. At this point the UV will help maintain the mV. The water control should maintain mV over testing period, and the oxidizer control should hold high mV over testing period then decrease.

We use this as a standard, because unlike pure water or tap water, in aquatics (aquariums and ponds) there’s more and increasing amounts of oxidizers due to the nitrogen cycle, o2, mineralization, lighting, temperature, etc. An aquarium or pond is a “closed system”, unlike “open systems” oceans, rivers, streams where mV is maintained. In closed systems mV tend to go higher.

--- The level of sterilization we used was what we have coined as high level 1 sterilization, which means there was certain number of passes of all the water going through the sterilizer in an hour for the wattage and total volume of the application. This amount of sterilizer controls algae, bacteria, and virus. We did not use or need level 2 sterilization which is sudden illness and parasite control.

We used 25 gals total water volume with 15 watt sterilizers at a flow of about 100gph.
8 watt water pump
5 gal control buckets
The water used was left out to gas or settle before measures
We made sure there was no extra crashing of water when filling or flow from the sterilizer as we didn’t want o2 levels to be effected. Used Potassium Permanganate Clear Water by Jungle as our oxidizer to the instructions on the back of the bottle 1tsp per 10gal and while it oxidizes higher than recommended normal tank levels Freshwater (say 125-150) and saltwater (300-350), we could see how the UVs managed the strong oxidizers. In this test if the mV ever got higher than 450 I state 450+ and anything below 100 100- And again these are general numbers as there’s different reasons to maintain different valves of MV.

We started with common $30 ORP meters then quickly realized how inaccurate or damaged they were. We switch Milwakee instruments ORP meters for higher grade tests. Calibrated at 256mV or precal from manufacture New water was used for each test and meters were cleaned , and stored correctly. No supplemental lighting, nitrogen cycle, bioload

And here are the results of the testi!
Tempature is measured in the test, because of how easily it effects ORP. Temp was attempted to be maintained. Test done in Summer months, but with no suppliment heat as the energy could effect ORP.

How does water only maintain its electrical charge?

How does the oxidizer used in the test maintain its electrical charge?

How does a polycarbonate UV maintain waters electrical charge?

How does a Titanium lined UV maintain waters electrical charge?

Dramatic drop in test may be a result of water temp. How does a polycarbonate UV maintain oxidized water electrical charge?

How does a Titanium lined UV maintain oxidized water electrical charge?

So, as we can see the Titanium sterilizer and polycarbonate sterilizers are similar in how they reduce oxidation when present and maintain the mV at a given point.

With this we should have a good understanding of how UV effects the water with the current tech on the market. We should also know that this commercial/hobby new tech has been applied in industrial applications already and now just commercial and retail available. The science of how the Titanium technology eradicates disease or bacteria is very neat in how it can sterilize to a higher degree and this is likely because of the oxidization and reduction that are happening at the same time.

Hopeful this takes a bit more scientific topic and makes it easy to understand and apply to any effect we have on our closed system for our aquatic pets.

We’ve found maintaining a balanced mV reading long term in these applications using certain techniques really do improve quality of life. mV effects how osmoregulation of organism work and we can work to help create healthy environments for aquatic life. If you want any of the items in the video like the TMC Titan, please guys get it through us at American Aquarium Products.

More information about Sterilization:
https://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/sterilization.html

More information about Redox:
https://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/redox-potential.html

TMC Titan UV Resource:
https://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/uvc-sterilizers.html#UVcSterilizers

Milwakee ORP Meter Resource:
https://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/store/p505/Milwaukee_MW500_PRO_ORP_Meter.html