Tds

[APC]

Hey All,

What kind of TDS readings are you all getting AFTER your water goes through an RO/DI unit? What is the ideal reading? When do you know you need to change out your membrane, etc.

Thanks

[ssgheislerswife]

My understanding is that they should be at zero...

[lunatik_69]

Originally Posted by APC

Hey All,

What kind of TDS readings are you all getting AFTER your water goes through an RO/DI unit? What is the ideal reading? When do you know you need to change out your membrane, etc.

Thanks

Should be zero, but you can wait until it hits 5ppm. I change out the membrane every year or two(depending on the reading,ppm) and the other filters every 6 months. Luna

[APC]

okay cool. My city water here in GA is 77ppm. When it comes out of my RO/DI unit it is 11ppm..I have an older coralife RO unit.

I just bought the Air Water and Ice Extreme RO/DI unit, and wanted to get a benchmark to work with before I fired it up for the first time.

I have noticed more algae in my tank...and I am a light feeder with a low bio-load in the tank. So I figured the problem was with my RO unit. Just got a TDS meter (Came with the new RO unit...what a deal!) and I really had no idea what was good vs. bad.

Thanks for the info.

[ReefSparky]

Luna is right. It should ideally be zero, but not everyone gets that. A good benchmark to take too, is to time how long it takes to produce a unit of water (the larger the unit, the more accurate your measurement tends to be--I use a 5 gallon bucket) My 75 GPD Typhoon 5 Stage takes 74 minutes to make a 5 G bucket, and this hasn't changed in the 7 months I own it. I never did get a TDS meter, but I'm confident my product water is good stuff. When the time it takes to produce water increases, that's a good indicator that it's time to change the particulate stages.

My paperwork that came with the Typhoon says the membrane should last about 3 years. I probably should pick up a TDS meter, as I've read that's also a good indicator when it's time to change stages.

If you're noticing more algae in your tank, it could be many things. Nitrates, old light bulbs, phosphates, silicates, overfeeding. . . . It's a long list.

[APC]

Thanks. Yeah, I have been working down the list of issues...bulbs are new (relatively - less then 6 months old), feeding is definitely not an issue, I do frequent water changes (25% every 2 weeks), have lots of good water flow, etc.

So going to give the new RO unit a try and see if that helps. The fact that my Coralife is reading 11, tells me it may be part of the issue.

Air, Water, and Ice seems to have good prices on this stuff. They defiintely had the best price around on the RO/DI units, and it came with a free TDS tester. Plus, I ordered it on Monday when I left for Work (I travel during the week), and it was on my front porch when I got home last night. Pretty sweet service.

[ReefSparky]

What are your phosphate levels? Do you run a phos reactor?