Water filter questions

[skp]

Hi i have a 34 gallon tank thats been running for almost 3 years.

I live in a city where the water is pretty clean. The only treament our water gets is a little bit of chlorine and UV sterilization. No chloramine or anything else. I have been using the aquarium pharmaceuticals tap water filter for the past 2 years with decent results. My very first cartridge didnt change color and so i started dripping the water at a much slower flow rate, (5 gallon bucket over 15 hours), than the suggested rate and it takes about 7 months for the cartridge to get half used.

Im thinking of buying a different water filter because im tired of leaving the water dripping over night to get enough water to then have to leave the salt mixing again for another night.

 

The aquarium pharmaceuticals tap water filter is essentially a de-ionizer right?

right now there is a really good sale for RO units. Is RO water better than just DI water?

I was thinking that if i got the RO unit then i could make my water change water (about 4 gallons a week) and some drinking water.

should i just save up more to get a RO/DI unit?

thanks everyone

[mmelnick]

What TDS readings you are getting. That's what really matters.

 

And you shouldn't drink DI water. Plain RO water is fine to drink, but DI water should just be used for the tank.

 

If you can get 0 TDS water with any of those methods it will be fine, but I would guess that RO/DI would be the best (and cheapest in the long run) way to get 0 TDS water.

[AZDesertRat]

You can pick up a very good reef quality RO/DI for less than $150 including a TDS meter, inline pressure gauge and full size vertical refillable DI filter among other things.

 

You can add a drinking water kit so you have pressurized RO water via a faucet, thats what I do. I have found over the years it is cheaper to add a drinking water kit to a reef system than it is to convert a drinking water system for reef use.

 

Drinking RO/DI is not really a health risk, it's just it costs more to produce and doesn't taset very good, kind of blah or bland since it has no minerals which gives the taste. You could not possibly drink enough DI to cause a problem, you would drown internally way before that happens. Remember hearing about the girl in the radio contest who darnk so much water she drowned, thats what would happen before you depeleted enough minerals or electrolytes to cause harm. We receive such a small amount of our minerals in water its a moot point.

 

Never go by color changing resins, I would suspect your tap water filter is not working as good as you think it is. Use a TDS meter and you will probably find it exhausts fairly quickly even though the color has not changed or changed completely. A TDS meter is the only way to tell.

[mmelnick]

Oh, I always thought that the DI water would strip you of electrolytes.

[AZDesertRat]

They have tried to prove that for years but can't. You cannot live on water alone so a accurate study is not possible, eat even one potato chip and you negate the study. I have seen locations where RO/DI has been consumed for years, not always by itself of course, and the people are as normal as you and I. One location is a nuclear facility that is cooled by wastewater effluent, they also treat the effluent with RO/DI and use it for human consumption. Another is the early space program.

[mmelnick]

They have tried to prove that for years but can't. You cannot live on water alone so a accurate study is not possible, eat even one potato chip and you negate the study. I have seen locations where RO/DI has been consumed for years, not always by itself of course, and the people are as normal as you and I. One location is a nuclear facility that is cooled by wastewater effluent, they also treat the effluent with RO/DI and use it for human consumption. Another is the early space program.

 

Oh, well there you go...

 

 

I think I've offiocially thread hijacked. (Sorry)

[skp]

ok, after doing more research. i am under the impression that di-ionized water is the purest and that the main reason for ro filtering before the di is to allow the di resin, which is the most expensive, to last longer.

 

the cheapest i can get a ro/di filter for is a bit over $200 which is almost double of just a ro filter.

Are there any ro/di units where i can just push a switch to choose if i want the water to go through the final di filter?

that way i can make drinking water just through the ro and then push the switch to de-ionize and make water change water.

[skp]

What TDS readings you are getting. That's what really matters.

 

And you shouldn't drink DI water. Plain RO water is fine to drink, but DI water should just be used for the tank.

 

If you can get 0 TDS water with any of those methods it will be fine, but I would guess that RO/DI would be the best (and cheapest in the long run) way to get 0 TDS water.

 

ok i get a TDS reading of 9 straight from the tap.

do you think i can get 0 TDS with just a RO filter?

[geewiz]

Oh, I always thought that the DI water would strip you of electrolytes.

 

keep in mind that di water is "about" the same as distilled. people drink distilled all the time. many of the di water rumors come from businesses that use di water. it must be listed as hazardous. but, not because it will rob your electrolytes but because its traveling through all that piping and is no longer protected from bacteria by chlorine, thats all, considered non potable.

 

but lack of electrolytes is a true problem and not just from internal drowning. a family member is chronically ill with a form of Parkinson's from decades of training for marathons and drinking plain water therefore not getting enough electrolytes. she was a health addict and thought the salt and sugar in Gatorade were bad for her.

[AZDesertRat]

A tap water TDS of 9 Thats insane! Where do you live, I want your water. Mine is 830 in Phoenix.

What are you testing with and where? What is your water source?

 

Sorry to hear that geewiz. You must admit that is not the normal person though. Most of us are not that active nor healthy enough to run marathons, wish I was but there are 52 rough years under the bridge. We eat so much junk food we get too much of everything, bad and good.

[skp]

A tap water TDS of 9 Thats insane! Where do you live, I want your water. Mine is 830 in Phoenix.

What are you testing with and where? What is your water source?

 

I live in a city called burnaby in British columbia canada.

thats right beside vancouver. I forget where the drinking water for my municipality comes from but i think its a coastal mountain lake. I didnt bother to ask last time i called the greater vancouver regional district to ask what they do to clean our water. I borrowed a friends TDS meter. He says its probably right and that he got a reading of 11 the last time he checked. 9 sounds kind of fishy to me after reading that you have a reading of 830. I think i should ask some local reefers what they get. The higher the TDS doesnt necessarily mean pollutants though right? minerals and good things also affect this reading right?

 

So if it is normal for our area to have water with TDS that low, should i invest in buying an ro/di or would it be ok to just get a ro filter? Everything works off of percentages right?

 

thanks again

[AZDesertRat]

You would probably be OK with either RO or DI by itself at those levels. I have heard from others that some Canadian waters were amazing low in TDS but most of the numbers I have been hearing are closer to 50. In the US the average is approaching 250, partly due to groundwater contamination as well as surface water problems. In the southwest we recharge a lot of waters both from surface sources and from treated wastewater effluent so we have a bank to draw from in times of drought. Los Angeles does the same. This raises the TDS in some cases too.

[geewiz]

A tap water TDS of 9 Thats insane! Where do you live, I want your water. Mine is 830 in Phoenix.

What are you testing with and where? What is your water source?

 

Sorry to hear that geewiz. You must admit that is not the normal person though. Most of us are not that active nor healthy enough to run marathons, wish I was but there are 52 rough years under the bridge. We eat so much junk food we get too much of everything, bad and good.

 

thanks brother but i hate the #####. she deserves it in my opinion. ha ha long story but true! and yeah its just believe it or not crap, not normal.

 

and that tds 9 stuff. i think we are reading that wrong.

[geewiz]

So if it is normal for our area to have water with TDS that low, should i invest in buying an ro/di or would it be ok to just get a ro filter? Everything works off of percentages right?

 

thanks again

 

if your tds is that low i would only run a carbon filter for the chlorine and see what happens. maybe test for cu and other baddies like phosphate. but if tds is really that low why waste the water with ro. the most i would do over carbon is di.