Adding phosphate remover in ato container

Milatianos · Dec 12, 2022

Hallo!! I have been trying to see if anyone has done this, but I cannot find anything. So for my ATO container, I have a float valve and it’s connected directly to my RoDi. The reason is because I don’t have a lot of space for a big container. My wife is always home so I don’t worry too much if there is a leak. So it all started from having diatoms for months now. I have been trying to find the reason. I always knew that with the way I use my RoDi I will have a lot of tds creep but I thought that the water was still okay since it had gone through the filter. When I test the water in the ATO container, it comes to about 10 tds. If I let the filter run for a bit it will of course go down to 0 so the filters are okay. So I was thinking if there’s any phosphate or silicate in that tds creep which keeps feeding the diatoms. So my solution to this is maybe adding phosphate and silicate remover in the ato container. Just a small little bag and change it out once per month for example. What do you think?

tmccaff · Dec 12, 2022

I would test for phosphates and nitrates both probably high. If phosphates high and nitrates high water changes could bring those numbers down. If you do 10 percent water changes the numbers should come down 10 percent bigger water changes bring numbers more quickly but in my opinion should never do more than 25% in one time. TDS really dont know whats in that. You can also buy a ATI ICP test they check RODI water that can tell you a lot whats going on. You may have to add another DI to help.

To bring high phosphates down may have to run GFO. However, I would get the ATI ICP test first to see whats going on.

landlubber · Dec 12, 2022

i think you'd be further ahead running the first gallon of your RODI into the drain and letting the resin purge before collecting the water. if that doesn't have the desired effect then i'd consider adding nutrient managing media to the tank.
The amount of top off water your display uses likely changes depending on the time of year which would also mean your nutrient management would sway with those seasons too. Not the end of the world but not ideal either.

edd59 · Dec 12, 2022

Milatianos said:
Hallo!! I have been trying to see if anyone has done this, but I cannot find anything. So for my ATO container, I have a float valve and it’s connected directly to my RoDi. The reason is because I don’t have a lot of space for a big container. My wife is always home so I don’t worry too much if there is a leak. So it all started from having diatoms for months now. I have been trying to find the reason. I always knew that with the way I use my RoDi I will have a lot of tds creep but I thought that the water was still okay since it had gone through the filter. When I test the water in the ATO container, it comes to about 10 tds. If I let the filter run for a bit it will of course go down to 0 so the filters are okay. So I was thinking if there’s any phosphate or silicate in that tds creep which keeps feeding the diatoms. So my solution to this is maybe adding phosphate and silicate remover in the ato container. Just a small little bag and change it out once per month for example. What do you think?

rodi is only 0 TDS out of the unit, once it hits your ato res or anything else it is not 0 anymore.