Interesting observation with water quality and 0 tds. How often do you change your filters and should you be changing filters more often?

[Hydrored]

I think I might just start buying from my lfs again!! This is all getting to complicated for a 60 year old woman! LOL.I sure wish my hubby was in the hobby!

So my hubby bought me the cheapest one BRS had the 4stage one and I just found out I left it on a slow trickle while on vacay for 3 days BUT the kicker is I checked a 5 gallon container I had just filled and it says 428 ppm! I have been filling my tanks with bad water and didn't know it! Its only been up and running maybe 6 weeks tops! My tanks are registering 7800 and 8800! Does the salinity raise it? My tap is 560 so I dont get it! The whole time I was just drizzling the water over the probes and not fully dipping it which I cant believe how dumb that was but I still cant see how it can be cash so soon!

I also dont get where you guys are coming up with the other numbers! How would know what comes out of what membrane ect?

I could really use some advise because I am freaking out because I have over 30 mid to high end zoa frags and 2 holy grail acans coming tomorrow and find out al this crap with my new rodi! I had ordered just refills to because I noticed it was almost 2/3 of the way up the color change indicator on the last membrane! Now I know that cant be trusted because the water I just checked tonight was almost 46 or something and my house is 56 and that was taken out while still less then 2/3 the way up! Some of my corals are reacting in my 20 gallon and just lost a hammer probably from the water!

I really like to get my new corals in as soon as they arrive as well but cant even get water until 10 pm tomorrow plus mix and all this so I am praying I dont loose these corals and not even sure how much water is safe to take out and not really time to make multiple trips up to lfs for water either if I take out out more then 60 perecnt or so! I also have been noticing my tank walls getting dirty much quicker then when I bought water! I dont see any real savings but sure was convenient not having to run to the lfs all the time!

You can not use a TDS meter in your reef tank.

Your TDS should be zero for your freshly made RODI WATER. Since it was running at a constant trickle you probably burnt through your DI stage from the sound of it. Also, I would be concerned over the other parameters of the tank. Is the reef tank itself 6 weeks old or the RODI system? You may want to start a new thread with all of your parameters, lighting, tank pictures, and age