Well water

[kwirky]

In about a year, when school's finished, I'll be moving in with my GF on her acreage. They have well water that's very alkaline. I don't trust using it as-is because it's not drinkable. Her dad drinks it anyways, thinking the alkalinity is good for his stomache lol. He's old and european and thinks wierd things like that. "Put some vindex on it!"

Anyone know of the proper equipment to make it reef safe? I thought maybe a whole house filter coupled with a RO/DI with an extra 1 micron prefilter or two. Probabyl an extra DI resin chamber, too.

[BCOrchidGuy]

Often a "Whole House Filter" is a water softener, (Calgon etc) they are ion exchange systems which take away one salt and add another. An RODI that is dedicated to your reef is probably your best bet OR just a DI system. There is a thread around about renewing or regenerating the Deionization beads for reuse. DI filters are the polishing filters in an RODI system, RO removes about 90% of the stuff you don't want and DI removes 99% of the stuff that RO misses. The reason people use RODI instead of just DI is that they would exaust the DI much faster with out the RO.

Doug

[Ruth]

I can speak from experience on this. I have well water and although it fine to drink it still has very high TDS. I have consulted a couple of companies about what I could do and it really boils down to money and room for equipment. My TDS is around 1500-2000 so very high. To get a system that would bring my TDS down to close to 0 would cost me about $10,000 and require a room dedicated to equipment. While I might be able to swing the cost I live in a log house with no basement so do not have the room that would be required for all the equipment. You basically have to soften the water first and then run it through a very large and high pressure RODO unit. I would also be replacing filters and resins very often given the high levels in my water.
For me it is just not feasible so I buy all my water from a local water store that I have a very good relationship with so am sure of the quality of their water and that they maintain their equipment.
I have a 230g, 190g, 110g, 10g and 12g tank so it is a lot of hand bombing water jugs once a week to do water changes.
Bottom line is have an analytical done on the well water and then consult a professional about what would be required to treat it.

[Quagmire]

Google "Kati ani" and see if this will do the trick.They are said to be long lasting and rechargable.But you need lye to recharge and Im not sure where you can get that in Canada.

[kwirky]

ah... I had an idea it would be a fancy expensive system. I think when I move in there, I'll just cart RO/DI water from the parent's house using my existing system as I need it using garbage pails.

I don't see the point in spending a large ammount of money on this when I move in, because supposedly municipal district of rockyview has started working on water and sewage mains, and they'll plumbed water and sewage in 2-3 years anyways.

Thanks for the info