RODI water

[Origin Unknown]

I have now acquired the filters, TDS monitor and pressure gauge to start making my own salt water for the marine tank. We have a water softener in our house, can I use a softened supply for the filters? Getting un-softened supply is a problem and will likely require removal of large parts of the kitchen.

Also, recommendations on salt? So many choose from....

Cheers

[Jasandjules]

I am assuming you have a good three stage RO unit with DI ?

You can get outside tap fittings if needs be.

What salt - what are you running, a reef or FO?

[Origin Unknown]

Yep, good three stage filter https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N6DV59S/ref... and decent TDS monitor https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013GDHV7W/ref...

It's a reef aquarium. I currently only have a coral and a small nem and 4 hermits which was the only life to survive a total crash last week. Gutted doesn't come close, I lost a lot of prized stock so leaving it as is for a while.



Do you keep a reef?

The outside tap is plumbed into the softener!

[Jasandjules]

Do you have an inline TDS meter on it? So you can confirm the output water is 0?

I used to use Kent but have switched to Red Sea Coral Pro salt which seems to result in happier corals. I have a reef and a species tank at the minute.

[Origin Unknown]

Yep, that TDS meter I linked above has an In and an Out.

All my test kit stuff is Red Sea so will look at their salt too. Cheers

[Jasandjules]

You also want to work out why the tank crashed before to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Does the inline TDS record 0 out?

[P700DEE]

Origin Unknown said:

I have now acquired the filters, TDS monitor and pressure gauge to start making my own salt water for the marine tank. We have a water softener in our house, can I use a softened supply for the filters? Getting un-softened supply is a problem and will likely require removal of large parts of the kitchen.

Also, recommendations on salt? So many choose from....

Cheers

It is not a good idea to have softned water for drinking. In a traditional water softner you have ion exchange resin that swaps Na (sodium) from the salt for the hardness salts e.g Ca Calcium. This is bad for drinking for two reasons, firstly you need Calcium for good bones and secondly high Sodium is associated with high blood pressure. Your installer should either have made your drinking and outside tap hard water or fitted a dedicated RO filter system designed for drinking water. Regarding using it for your marine tank, the answer is probably yes but you will be creating deionised water by RO and adding salt mix. Your RO should take out all metals and even if it is not as efficient for Sodium it will make the leasst differennce when you add salt.

[budgie smuggler]

Origin Unknown said:

Yep, good three stage filter https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N6DV59S/ref... and decent TDS monitor https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013GDHV7W/ref...

It's a reef aquarium. I currently only have a coral and a small nem and 4 hermits which was the only life to survive a total crash last week. Gutted doesn't come close, I lost a lot of prized stock so leaving it as is for a while.



Do you keep a reef?

The outside tap is plumbed into the softener!

If I can make a suggestion, I'd recommend you get a proper two or three stage DI filter. Like this:

https://www.osmotics.co.uk/products/Three-Stage-Re...

You can put it in place of the DI stage you have.

You will find that even with 0 TDS output, that little one you have does not have enough dwell time and will let through silica and other elements which don't bind well to DI resin (and also some DO NOT register on a TDS meter!).

Secondly having a two or three stage DI setup means you can replace a chamber at a time to avoid the 'band effect' (dumping a concentrated dose of weakly bound elements in when the DI resin starts to become depleted).


I keep SPS, LPS & softies in my nano and had huge problems with a few elements slipping through my DI stage, I upgraded mine to the one I linked and fixed it straight away.

This is it last year, it's grown a lot since https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcxiD7NXfI

[Jasandjules]

budgie smuggler said:

You will find that even with 0 TDS output

The inline TDS meter should be the output from the membrane not post DI in any event.

But I do agree I tend to have RO Man units(with twin membranes) and I have both inline DI and a separate unit - but then I have input water of 450 TDS....

[budgie smuggler]

Jasandjules said:

The inline TDS meter should be the output from the membrane not post DI in any event.

But I do agree I tend to have RO Man units(with twin membranes) and I have both inline DI and a separate unit - but then I have input water of 450 TDS....

Mines anywhere from 300 to 500+ sometimes. Pretty sure I have chloramine now too

I check the TDS post membrane and post DI so I can monitor their health separately. Not that I ever let the DI get depleted but just in case something goes wrong...

[Origin Unknown]

P700DEE said:

Origin Unknown said:

I have now acquired the filters, TDS monitor and pressure gauge to start making my own salt water for the marine tank. We have a water softener in our house, can I use a softened supply for the filters? Getting un-softened supply is a problem and will likely require removal of large parts of the kitchen.

Also, recommendations on salt? So many choose from....

Cheers

It is not a good idea to have softned water for drinking. In a traditional water softner you have ion exchange resin that swaps Na (sodium) from the salt for the hardness salts e.g Ca Calcium. This is bad for drinking for two reasons, firstly you need Calcium for good bones and secondly high Sodium is associated with high blood pressure. Your installer should either have made your drinking and outside tap hard water or fitted a dedicated RO filter system designed for drinking water. Regarding using it for your marine tank, the answer is probably yes but you will be creating deionised water by RO and adding salt mix. Your RO should take out all metals and even if it is not as efficient for Sodium it will make the leasst differennce when you add salt.

Thanks. We do have a 3 way Brita tap filtered via P1000 filter so we have unsoftened drinking water. It was more a question of whether I could use softener input water as getting a clean feed is a problem. Will try anyway.

[Origin Unknown]

budgie smuggler said:

If I can make a suggestion, I'd recommend you get a proper two or three stage DI filter. Like this:

https://www.osmotics.co.uk/products/Three-Stage-Re...

You can put it in place of the DI stage you have.

You will find that even with 0 TDS output, that little one you have does not have enough dwell time and will let through silica and other elements which don't bind well to DI resin (and also some DO NOT register on a TDS meter!).

Secondly having a two or three stage DI setup means you can replace a chamber at a time to avoid the 'band effect' (dumping a concentrated dose of weakly bound elements in when the DI resin starts to become depleted).


I keep SPS, LPS & softies in my nano and had huge problems with a few elements slipping through my DI stage, I upgraded mine to the one I linked and fixed it straight away.

This is it last year, it's grown a lot since https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcxiD7NXfI

Wow nice tank. Thanks for the steer on the DI filter, will give that a go.

[Origin Unknown]

Jasandjules said:

You also want to work out why the tank crashed before to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Does the inline TDS record 0 out?

I'm at a loss as to why it crashed. I'm 6 months into this hobby so not overly experienced but do take great care to do a 10% water change each week and test for the usual suspects using various Red Sea kits and properly calibrated salinity refractometer.

I changed test kits a few weeks ago fromn an API reef kit to Red Sea and found I was getting different results. The API kit was giving me consistent zero's.
The Red Sea kit tells me Phosphate, Nitrate and Nitrite has been the persistent problems, albeit decreasing.

[Jasandjules]

You had an ammonia issue. Did you lose a fish? Do you have plenty of CuC?

[Origin Unknown]

Yep, CuC was a cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp (which subsequently ate the cleaner shrimp ), 4 hermits, 2 snails.

The API test kit gave consistent readings of zero ammonia and fish were introduced over a number of weeks. I have an Seachem ammoniaalert thing on the tank also. Then I change test kits to Red Sea and my readings are completely different. I also wasn;t testing for Phosphate previously too.

I've been treating the tank with a SeaChem SeaGel in a second filter to get the phosphates down and a NiteOut II chemical to bring ammonia down. The ammoniaalert never triggered.

Anyway, live and learn.

[Jasandjules]

How did you cycle the tank?

You also have a high SG ...

[Origin Unknown]

I've always bought my salt water from the same LFS and it comes with that SG. Lots of different guidance out there and I've seen anything between 1.023 and 1.027. This thread was setup so I could start making my own water and control my SG. What SG do you have?

Tank was populated with live rock, live sand and starter bacteria. Tank run for around 6 weeks before anything was added. As above, the API kit showed levels were good to start introducing life. CuC was added first and left for 2 weeks to settle before first fish.

[Turn7]

Get over to Ultimate Reef...

https://www.ultimatereef.net/


All your answers are there....A very fine Reefers resource.

[Jasandjules]

I run my SG at 1.025.

But at least in future you will make your own, that is much better.

There are also many facebook groups - you will no doubt be able to find one and some local reefers who can help you with choice of LFS and more.........