RO/DI units vs TAP water.

its not guaranteed, its been ten years no problems, no need to waste money on the ro/di


please tell me how ten years of success as good as any one is foolish? Its foolish to think RO is the only way

 

well if your water isnt good then i guess it would be foolish but if your water is ok why waste money?

but my water is more in the bad side than in the good side.

 

You have no control over things like this:


Or this:


Or this:


Or even this in Atlanta GA recently where the entire treatment plant was under water:


The point is, you as an end user have absolutely no control over your tap water quality other than not throwing your garden hose in a tree well or horse trough. Even the treatment plant has little control after it leaves the plant other than adding a residual disinfectant like chlorine, chlorine dioxide or chloramines. Things happen as we all know and usually at the worst possible moment like when your ATO is filling the tank.

With an RO/DI you take that risk out of the picture and you get the same quality water consistently. No changes in pH when the plant adds more caustic or acid, no spikes in chlorine, no ortho or polyphosphates from the chemicals used to treat the pipes in the distribution system so they don't corrode. No ecoli bacteria when the line breaks down the street and introduces contaminants to the water.

Too many variables and for less then $150 you can take them out of the equation. Its foolish to have a reef system with hundreds or thousnads of corals and inhabitants and not have one, just plain foolish.

 

Hey Oceanparadise 1
I am confused
Your 180 RR thread that you posted has this pic below in it
Isnt this an RO Unit?

 

I'm lucky in my area the water out of the tap according to my inline TDS is 30-45. I bought an RO/DI after getting back into the hobby after an 18 year break. Back then thats all I used was water right out of the faucet and did so for years w/ zero problems. Back then I had not even heard of RO/DI units, as much as they may have been around. Just add one cap of AMQUIL to remove chlorimine etc (if even present) and I had water ready to use.

Presently I have an RO/DI unit, have had it for almost 1 year. 50.00 dollars delivered to my door from Ebay, its a 5 stager and the water goes in at 30-45 and comes out 0. I have an inline tds meter-great investment(both).

For 50.00 its a no brainer, plus I ran a hose from the laundry room where I have the RO unit through the attic into the garage, drilled a hole in the wall from the garage into the F/R to an auto top off I built in the sump.

Truly flip a switch fills my RO/DI res. (which has a back pressure switch to shut of a booster pump I added) and the top off takes over from there. Got that simplyfied to the Nth degree

I'm dialed and not looking back-

so RO/DI vs Tap. Both can work depending on your water quality-In my first hand proven opinion for MY area

 

I'm not sure why one would want to invest so much into a hobby and use a unknown source as a make up. TDS is just one measurement. There is plenty of other stuff in water too. Personally, I'm not a water snob. I will drink anything that comes out of a faucet. But only RO/DI for the tank.

It isn't about what you have coming out of the tap, it is what you have accumulating in your tank. Evaporation is pure water... you need to replace it with pure water. It is no different than topping off with salt water...concentrations rise.

I can also attest to water quality changing dramatically from day to day. Water quality coming into my plant changes from shift to shift. Yet water quality coming out of our RO/DI is always the same..... pure H2O.

 

It's not foolish to think RO is the only way.

It's perhaps foolish for you to think RO is the only way, given your unique situation.

It is not foolish to use tap water, however it is foolish to suggest the idea without knowing what the quality of water is like, or the consistency of available "good quality tap water"

It is safer to suggest a proper RO/DI method, since it eliminates any worry or anxiety about the water quality.

 

Exactly. Investing some time and money in getting the best quality water is always good practice.

 

Personally I prefer to eliminate any gamble from my system and have RODI which I used for my set up, water changes and top ups.

Im certain that there are many locations where the local tap water is perfectly acceptable and many succesfull reefs are run using it - I just would not want to take the chance that mine would be one

there are so many aspects of this hobby that are hard to control when you 1st start
but you dont have to let inconsistent water quality be one of them, especially when quality units are very reasonably priced these days.

Steve

 

Agreed. It's not rocket science to think that water quality is quite possibly the single most important variable over which we DO have control. In my mind; leaving such things to chance is insanity. The more I read, the more the vast majority confirms this.

I also like the Bermuda Shorts comparison above. Just because you can wear them in your particular climate, doesn't make them acceptable for use worldwide.

I think an important lesson one should walk away with after reading this thread, is that just because something works for one person in their particular situation, don't make the mistake of thinking that it's something that can be generalized to anyone else. That's not sound logic.

If I close my eyes and floor my accelerator through a particular stop sign, and haven't ever been written a ticket, or caused an accident; my experience doesn't justify me telling others that to successfully run stop signs; all they need to do is what I do.

So many folks are prone to listen to take for gospel many things they read. That's too bad. This is especially true for newcomers who have not yet had sufficient experience to make their own deductions--YET. It's ultimately up to both newcomers and veterans alike to read, understand, and weigh the sense of what they read and determine by further reading and common sense--if these alleged conclusions can apply to them.

You never stop learning. Be wary of those who speak in absolutes. I think it was geekdafied's quote who says something along the lines of "trust those who often question, doubt those who claim to have found the answers."