RO/DI units vs TAP water.

Aerating tap water does not remove much, only volatiles like chlorine which can be removed with a simple carbon cartridge.
Chemicals like Prime don't remove them either, they only sequester them or hide them from a test kit, they are still there and did not magically disappear.

 

Rochester has pretty clean water. I can vouch for that. Just look at a report from the monroe county water authority. Oceanparadise1 and I both get our water from the shoremont WTP, which is off of lake ontario. Just some stats that play a roll in our tanks. Everyone else can get a detailed report of their water from their local water authority.

This is all out of the tap:
Nitrates: EPA/NYSDEC allows 10 mg/l (ppm)
Tap contains .36 mg/l
Silica: EPA/NYSDEC has no standard
Tap contains .9 mg/l
Chlorides: EPA/NYSDEC 250 mg/l
Tap contains 26 mg/l

some random fact: there is 4 ng/l (that's nanogram, thats 4 parts per trillion) of caffiene in my tap water.

Anywho, as aquarists we try to shoot for 0tds...this is just to ensure complete purity. So we know for sure whats going in our tanks. Has anyone recently taken a look at what's in our synthetic salts? Anyone seen the levels of stuff in there? Same things as tap, maybe not as much but they are there.

 

Water reports are rough guides. Remember that report is a snapshot in time. Its what was present in that particular sample at that moment. It is not always representative of true water quality over a years time. I know how the reports work, I supervised a large municipal water utility for 17 years continous, two medium/large private utilities before that and another municipal utility afterwards before retiring from municipal work.
Samples are taken during optimal times, no storms or winds, none of the lesser sources contributing etc.

Its much better than nothing at all but not really accurate. Phoenix and the surrounding cities are perfect examlpes. I have yet to meet a fellow reefer whose TDS is as low as they all publish in their water quality reports. I also find the hardness to be inaccurate as well as things like disinfectant residuals.

 

ive heard that prime does remove them.... Prime is supposed to make the bad chemicals in the water in a way that the bio-filter is able to remove them later.

 

Yeah, it turns it into Ammonia which is processed by the bacteria on/in your LR

 

Turns what into ammonia? Its not magic. Ammonia is the start of the nitrogen cycle not the end.
It masks or binds contaminants not removes them.

 

i thought it was able to REMOVE ammonia and nitrates. or at least changed them in a way that the carbon in the biofilter is able to remove. ( it says it on the label.)

 

Seachem. Prime

 

This is from an article I found on the web. Again it does not remove anything, it binds it. The biological cycle does the same thing so I find their claims hard to swallow.
Simple vitamin C or sodium thiosulfate both remove chlorine. I wouldn't spend big money on dechlorinators, the stuff at WalMart for less than a buck does the same thing. A few drops per gallon is all it takes. Let nature do the rest.

Actually Ionly use RO/DI o I don't worry about any of the conditioners and haven't since 1990 when I bought my first RO system.



"Use Prime (removes chlorine/chloramines, detoxifies ammonia & nitrite) or any other Ammonia/Nitrite de-toxifier such Ammo Lock, Amquel Plus or Amquel. These products do not remove ammonia they change the ammonia from highly toxic NH3 to less toxic Ammonium (NH4). Please note the ammonia will still test after using these products as the test kits do not differentiate between ammonia and ammonium (ionized ammonia). Prime will keep the ammonium safely “bound” even if the pH climbs (which would otherwise convert NH4 to NH3). The ammonium is still available for nitrifying bacteria to consume and therefore Prime will not interrupt the growth of healthy bio-bacterial colonies as the ionized ammonia and nitrites are still available for nitrifying bacteria. It should be also noted that most test kit will still show the ammonia/nitrites at the SAME level as before the addition of Prime/Amquel +, however rest assured this is in a non-toxic ionized form that is still bio available to Nitrobacteraceae bacteria that forming in your filter media/gravel.

Here is more information about Prime: “The detoxification of nitrite and nitrate by Prime (when used at elevated levels) is not well understood from a mechanistic standpoint. The most likely explanation is that the nitrite and nitrate is removed in a manner similar to the way ammonia is removed; i.e. it is bound and held in an inert state until such time that bacteria in the biological filter are able to take a hold of it, break it apart and use it. Two other possible scenarios are reduction to nitrogen (N2) gas or conversion into a benign organic nitrogen compound”."

 

exactly what i said