kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

thanks everyone !

So ya, my DI saga continues.. It all started this evening when I went to my RO/DI reservoir to make another batch of NSW (New Salt Water) for a water change. Immediately I could smell that rotten smell that I mentioned in my previous update. This is odd because I just replaced my filters (Sediment, Carbon and DI) barely a month ago. I went on a testing spree and turned up some interesting but not surprising results..

Here's the TDS reading coming out of my RO membrane.



7 TDS. Not bad and fairly normal I'd say.

Now here's the TDS going out of my 1 month old DI resin.



31 TDS. Whoa, that's definitely not zero. And as I mentioned, the water stinks. Literally stinks, like rotten eggs. I have to admit the smell can be a bit subtle so some people may not notice it. And as I've mentioned previously, I have had this stinky water before and now that I think back in retrospect, each time I had this smelly water issue I had coral issues. That's not really a surprise either because I can't even begin to imagine what nastiness I was dumping into my tank with this water. What surprised me is how quickly the water went from Zero TDS from one batch to 31 TDS in the next batch with rotten smelly water. I literally have a couple of 5g buckets of fresh RO/DI water that I made last weekend (I leave them near the tank to fill my top off reservoir) and both of those buckets read ZERO TDS.

At any rate, I took out my DI canister (and left it out), replaced my carbon filter, flushed the membrane for a bit, deep cleaned my 50g RO reservoir and proceeded to make water again. Here's the TDS coming out of my DI-less RO unit.



I think I'm going to live without DI for a while and see if there are any adverse effects. I know of people who don't use DI and after my episode(s) I'm leaning towards that route myself. I can live with 2-7 TDS if it keeps me from DI dumping nasty crap into my tank (even by accident). Another plus is the savings!

On a final note, guys.. do you know how hard it is to deep clean a rain barrel when you're a Hobbit with t-rex arms??

[Slyguy00]

I dont have di on my ro and it always reads 0. I have a di canister but havnt felt the need to install it since my readings are consistantly zero. I personally have never had an issue with just ro. And at one point before ro it was reading 235 and still was only 1 after ro

[gregzz4]

No DI in Calgary huh ... hmm, interesting

Where's the pics of the T-rex reaching for the bottom of the drum ???
Good luck with that

Looking forward to some results without your DI connected ...

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by Slyguy00

I dont have di on my ro and it always reads 0. I have a di canister but havnt felt the need to install it since my readings are consistantly zero. I personally have never had an issue with just ro. And at one point before ro it was reading 235 and still was only 1 after ro

But what's your incoming water reading regularly ?

Sometimes they, in Calgary, get huge readings (by Vancouver standards) of up to 7-800ppm if I remember correctly
They need DI

[Slyguy00]

The water out here in abbotsford seems to fluctuate quite a bit, iv seen from 2ppm up to 340ppm. I would say on an average its probably about 7-10ppm though. I never really considered water in calgary, but if he said he was only getting 2ppm after RO minus DI I would think that would be ok no?

[kien]

I know of a few calgarians who don't DI. I've tested my tap a few times throughout the year(s) and have at most seen TDS at 175 ? Certainly never seen TDS higher than 200 !! We have major major run off and snow melt (flooding in some areas) right now and I just tested my tap, TDS 149.

[reeferfulton]

Does the water stink as you are making it ? Or after its been sitting for a few days.
Is it in a sealed bucket while etc.

[kien]

Originally Posted by reeferfulton

Does the water stink as you are making it ? Or after its been sitting for a few days.
Is it in a sealed bucket while etc.

Ya the smell seems to be coming right out of the RO/DI unit. When I took out the DI and put it in the sink in the bathroom I cold smell the DI resin. My freshwater reservoir is covered and mostly sealed. That last batch I made was just last night so it wasn't sitting around for long.

[Coralgurl]

I only run RO, incoming on my last batch was around 127, 0 coming out. I think you'd be fine without it! I'll be changing my filters before the next batch, only thing that should change is production time....

[kien]

Originally Posted by Coralgurl

I only run RO, incoming on my last batch was around 127, 0 coming out. I think you'd be fine without it! I'll be changing my filters before the next batch, only thing that should change is production time....

Nice! My sediment filter is probably overdue and if I replace that I wonder if my output would drop from 2 to zero. Not that a TDS of 2 is anything to worry about. I'm just happy that my water doesn't stink Seriously, I just Googled "smelly Di resin" and apparently it's pretty common.