RO/DI Smells....?!

[Christo]

Okay so I live in my parents' basement, we recently had it renovated. We had some of the plumbing redone in the kitchen because we moved the location of the sink. Instead of using copper plumbing we went with the new flexible colored hoses. I have my RO/DI hooked up under the sink that fills a container with a float valve.

 

Before I installed this system I was still using an aquarium pharmaceuticals tap water filter which worked great but when i started using it after the renovations the water came out smelling very weird. I got rid of it thinking that it was time for an RO/DI anyway. I installed the RO/DI and the water still smells a little weird after having run the system for a few hours. Its been running for a few weeks now and i can still smell it, its not as noxious as before but its still there. I have been using this water as top off and have only seen one of my goni's retract and fade a bit.

 

What do you guys think it is? I have tasted the water and tested tds (tds is at 0) water tastes fine but makes me more thirsty than i was before i tasted it. I read that ro/di can be very volatile and disolve the container and this can cause some odor.

 

I dont know what to think anymore lol

[skydive]

I've been wondering the same thing. Tested the TDS and it's also zero so I'm using up all the water in the reservoir and going to rinse it out with some fresh RO/DI and see what that does.

 

What type of container are you using? Mine is a brute trash can that was new when bought and rinsed out thoroughly before use.

 

FYI....it smells like cat urine to me but I don't have any cats

[Christo]

I've been wondering the same thing. Tested the TDS and it's also zero so I'm using up all the water in the reservoir and going to rinse it out with some fresh RO/DI and see what that does.

 

What type of container are you using? Mine is a brute trash can that was new when bought and rinsed out thoroughly before use.

 

FYI....it smells like cat urine to me but I don't have any cats

 

Im not sure what cat urine smells like lol but it does have a very sharp smell. Mine is in a 20g clear plastic container that i bought from home depot. I think i may dump mine and restart it again. Maybe it just needs some time to break in.

[thecowkid]

All water will sour. I dont care how pure it is. Then it will take on a musty smell and move to the musky mildew smell. Think a stagnat pond. Just keep a small air or water pump in it and this will solve the problem.

[GioReef]

Keep it sealed too. Ro/di water is like a magnet and absorbs a lot of odors.

[Christo]

All water will sour. I dont care how pure it is. Then it will take on a musty smell and move to the musky mildew smell. Think a stagnat pond. Just keep a small air or water pump in it and this will solve the problem.

I agree here but the container that my water is sitting in has absolutely no algae, it doesnt look stagnant, it doesnt taste bad, it just smells funny. The water was drained about a week ago. Ive smelled water that came straight out of the ro/di unit and it has this smell. I know its not stagnant for sure.

[GioReef]

Ive smelled water that came straight out of the ro/di unit and it has this smell. I know its not stagnant for sure.

 

Oh... then i have no clue.

[thecowkid]

If you google PEX smells. your gonna find alot of postings on it making water smell or taste like its coming from a cheep water hose. I know I've used it and had to have it flushed to get the smell out of it. Some of the plastics that are used in PEX actually will aid in bacteria growth. This could be the smell or a remainging release agent from the extruding process of production on PEX. One thing to remember is. Your old copper pipes were zapping any bacteria that was in the water. Recently the EPA released a statement stating that copper pipes were known to help sterilize water.

 

I would take apart my ro/di and clean it with a mild vinegar water solution, replace all the tubes and replace the odor resin filter "you do have one dont ya?" Hopefully this helps

[Christo]

If you google PEX smells. your gonna find alot of postings on it making water smell or taste like its coming from a cheep water hose. I know I've used it and had to have it flushed to get the smell out of it. Some of the plastics that are used in PEX actually will aid in bacteria growth. This could be the smell or a remainging release agent from the extruding process of production on PEX. One thing to remember is. Your old copper pipes were zapping any bacteria that was in the water. Recently the EPA released a statement stating that copper pipes were known to help sterilize water.

 

I would take apart my ro/di and clean it with a mild vinegar water solution, replace all the tubes and replace the odor resin filter "you do have one dont ya?" Hopefully this helps

 

Thanks Josh,

 

I will clean out the tub and clean the cartridges, im def not going to be replacing any of the resins since the unit is brand new. It is a 5 stage system that Bulk Reef supply sells. I have not added an additional odor resin filter as i thought the last DI stage should take care of this. Like i said the smell is slowly going away, i will clean out the container and hopefully it will go away soon. Do you think this will affect my corals in any way?

[thecowkid]

I cannot say if it will or will not affect the corals. I would lean to say it could a little, but thats a real hard one. It sounds as if you may have misunderstood me on the cleaning. Dont clean the filter media itself, only the housings and base caps of those housings.

[GioReef]

Ya could also contact bulk reef supply and ask them what to do or if they ever had this problem before...

[SeeDemTails]

It smells because you need new DI resin, and yes, it will harm your corals.

[Christo]

okay, good thing i didnt use any then

 

I did dump the container last night and washed it out along with all the filter housings etc. mainly focused only cleaning the di resin container.

 

Water this morning smells much better, cant really notice a smell at all.

 

When i did set up the system the instructions said to run it non stop for about 2 hrs to clean the system, which i did but next time when i change filters i will lean more towards a day or two.

 

Thanks for the help, problem seems to be resolved.

[skydive]

How did you clean the DI cartridge? Just ran it for awhile?

 

I bought a Kent Marine cartridge and no matter how much I ran it I can't get it below 5 TDS. I got a different one and use it but I still want to get the Kent Marine to work because it wasn't free ya know?

[Christo]

How did you clean the DI cartridge? Just ran it for awhile?

 

I bought a Kent Marine cartridge and no matter how much I ran it I can't get it below 5 TDS. I got a different one and use it but I still want to get the Kent Marine to work because it wasn't free ya know?

 

5 TDS is fine for our use, i took the DI cartridge out and ran it under the tap for a while, i also washed out the plastic housing. After i put it back together i ran it for a couple of hours, make sure you rinse your di cartridge from the bottom since that is where the water enters,it exits at the top.

 

Other than that i filled the 20g container twice and dumped it until i noticed the smell going away.

 

My tap water is very clean here in bc, so my water enters my di cartridge at 0-1tds and after it leaves di its at 0. From what Ive read 0-5 tds is fine for our purposes. I dont think the tds actually has anything to do with the smell.

 

Anyone please correct me if im wrong.

[AZDesertRat]

Skydive, have you recently installed and new carpet or is your home fairly new? Find out of your water utility used chlorine dioxide as a residual disinfectant. The reason I say this is for some reason chlorine dioxide reacts with carpet glues and the "cat urine" smell is a common indicator we see often.

 

All RO/DI water can have a smell, this is very common and nothing to be alarmed about. I borrowed the following from the Spectrapure FAQs on their website:

 

Type 1 Strong based Anion resins release very low levels of amines (trimethylamine). A very low threshold of 5 PPB or greater will cause a fishy odor to be noticeable. The odor is most noticeable when the resins are new and when they are at or near the point of exhaustion.

 

NOTE: Trimethylamine is also released by decomposing fish which also results in the same type of odor.

 

 

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I don't use RO/DI with any measurable TDS, 5 is not good. DI resins release weakly ionoized substances even before they are exhausted and a few of those are nitrates, phosphates and silicates. When I very first start to see anything other than a consistent 0 TDS its time for a resin change. If you can't get anything below 5 with RO/DI you have a problem. I would first check the calibration of your TDS meter then check the three points for TDS, tap water, RO only and finally RO/DI to determine where the problem is. ANY RO/DI should give you 0 TDS, at least for a little while.

[Christo]

Sorry I made a mistake in my previous post, 0-5 tds is accpetable from what i read but if you get 5tds consistently then i would check my calibration of the tds meter like AZ said, other than that if your calibration is good then it may be time that you check your prefilters and your di resin (have you had it for a long time?)

[AZDesertRat]

Prefilters and carbons have very little to absolutely no effect on TDS. They are there to protect the RO membrane which is what removes 90-98+% of the TDS and the DI polishes off the rest.

To find out where the trouble lies get three TDS readings, tap water, RO only water before DI and final product or RO/DI water. If the membrane is not removing somewhere over 96% of the tap water TDS that would be the main problem which overtaxes the DI resin which is only supposed to be a final polishing. Other factors like high dissolved CO2 in your tap water can also lead to shortened DI life and cannot be cured simply. There are better DI resins available though that help combat high CO2.

 

Prefilters and carbons should get replaced every 6months like clockwork regardless of how much or little water you have made and RO membranes and DI get changed according to how well they are performing based on TDS readings. Remember to always disinfect the system according to the vendors directions every time you change filters.