RO/DI units vs TAP water.

i said this before... so many jokes.... so many restrictions....;D

 

personally I have been a firm believer of "if it works for you then do it", really if you have good tds and you have checked your tap water and your tank is doing fine then keep using it.(and I know allot of people here that have beautiful healthy reefs that use tap water)

with that said though people jump into this hobby and don't test their water first then you end up with a hundred different post of ,"I don't understand where this algae is coming from." So I believe the key is test your tap water first before you make a decision to spend money on a ro/di unit.

I had to get a ro/di when i moved because my water was high in tds and iron.

 

perfectly said

 

A lot of RO/DI threads tonight. hehe

 

yea lol thats exactly what i was just thinking.

 

amen to that. all of you are arguing over tap water and how you should use it but im on board with the people who like ro/di because for someone like ocean, if your tds is under 20 or anywhere close to that you are LUCKY. 95% of people cant get that clean of water just from tap. Most of ours are (average) 20x higher in tds than yours!

 

:grinthumbs: Thank you

Just a little clarification. A TDS meter reading of zero does not mean you're not still putting phosphates into your tank....just means it's low enough to not be all that concerned. Most people don't have an industrial conductivity meter to be sure that it's really zero.

A little more clarification. It's fairly irresponsible IMO to say, "Well I've used tap water for years and I've never had a problem" and tell others they can too. Most water treatment plants purposely add additional phosphates to minimize pipe corrosion and to sequester Iron ions. As a result, the reality is that most people cannot use tapwater in a reef tank environment (phosphates, Silicates, Iron, etc.) That is like my friend who lives in the Bahamas saying, "I've been wearing nothing but shorts outside for years and I've never been cold" and telling people all over the world that they should be able to wear nothing but shorts too. It makes more sense to say, most people require additional filtration. I'm lucky. Where I live, my tapwater is fine but you should either test yours or break down and buy filters or filtered water.

There are two ways to determine whether you need RO, RO/DI, DI only, or tapwater;

1) Try it, find out your tapwater was filled with phosphates, Iron, Silicates, Copper and the like, let algae take over, then take your tank down, scrub all the rocks, replace all the sand (phosphorus adsorbs to CaCO3), and start over. Or,

2) Get a free water report from your treatment plant. In the states, they have to give you one by law.

A TDS reading of zero doesn't mean that Phosphates and Silicates aren't getting through the filtration (although it's a fairly good indicator that it isn't a bad problem).

 

Thanks Inwall. Also you can usually find out how much metal and things are in your local water on the internet.
I don't like putting water in my tank that has been running through copper pipes. I feel better filtering it.
Another note is that in some areas of the country it's actually illegal to use these RO units. They waste a lot of water. I've noticed that some people save their rejection water for watering the lawn and other things.

 

Bingo, welcome to Nevada, its a desert after all. But my tap water sucks so I use just a DI resign. It eats threw them a lot faster but at least it works.

 

i got an RO unit today;D i decided i wanted to just get it lol. no harm on getting one. so i did.