Problems after switching to well water

blackflme

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In December I moved to a new house with well water. Corals were happy until I started doing water changes. I use a 4 stage rodi system. My corals were roughly 3-4years old and all of them have died or been closed up and nothing i do has changed that. The only thing that has changed is my water source. I took an ICP test and everything came back good except for 200ppm silicon.

Has anyone had this experience before? The problem must be the water but idk how. My mushroom is about gone, zoas have been closed for a long time, and my GSP which was doing amazing has died. The tank had 2 clowns and a shrimp and one clown also died and the other isn't doing well. I think it has a parasite. Im lost and looking for some kind of answers.
 

ihavecrabs

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Sounds like your RODI has an issue. I have 800+ TDS in my filtered (softener and iron removal) well water and after RO is 16.. after DI is 0.

If you are keeping your filters changed frequently enough and ensuring your DI resin is replaced when needed, there is no reason it should be causing you issues.

I assume the 200 ppm silicone is after DI? Tells me that your DI resin definitely needs to be replaced. It may mean that your RO membrane and other filters should be replaced as well.
 

ihavecrabs

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One thing that has saved me with well water and my RODI system is running 4 stages of DI resin.. I know.. it sound insane.. but here is why.

Stage 1, 2, 3 are all "exhausted DI". what this means is I cycle them through but I only ever put new resin in the final stage. This is because my output TDS from RO is 15-17, but after my exhausted DI, is always drops it down to a TDS of 4, so it is still benefiting me to run it. That leaves my last DI resin chamber that is always new only tackling 4 TDS rather than the full 16.

I have also made a recently change for stages 1 and 2 to run separate anion and cation resins (3 and 4 are still mixed bed rotated). Running the cation resin has been amazing and has limited the amount of mixed bed resin I have gone though.

Hope this helps!
 

PedroYoung

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I run 4 stages of DI on my well too. I use the BRS Pro system that has separate anion and cation resins, then run 2 stages of mixed. The Anion resin gets used up about 20x faster than the others.
 

srobertb

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In December I moved to a new house with well water. Corals were happy until I started doing water changes. I use a 4 stage rodi system. My corals were roughly 3-4years old and all of them have died or been closed up and nothing i do has changed that. The only thing that has changed is my water source. I took an ICP test and everything came back good except for 200ppm silicon.

Has anyone had this experience before? The problem must be the water but idk how. My mushroom is about gone, zoas have been closed for a long time, and my GSP which was doing amazing has died. The tank had 2 clowns and a shrimp and one clown also died and the other isn't doing well. I think it has a parasite. Im lost and looking for some kind of answers.
If you want to focus on your water: change all your filters to be sure. I run dual resin and you might consider running cation, anion, plus a mix. You can buy extra canisters for $20 online and find the media too. I run this setup for my water and honestly don’t really go through that much more media than I was with one filter. There is a BRStv video discussing your exact issue (although not as extreme) and their solution (multiple resin chambers).

I also believe that while silica may lead to algae blooms it should not be excessively harmful to livestock. I would consider further issues
 
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blackflme

blackflme

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I should have mentioned i did change all of my filters, but the membrane because it was only a year old. I also didn't mention that I do have an extra di resin cartridge that I added on. But they are just basic color changing resins.
 

Mical

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+1 @PedroYoung suggestion. We moved to a rural town where city water is treated well water and I was cooking through DI resin. Switched to Cation, Anion & DI resin setup and I'm going through Anion about every 3 months, the cation and DI resin haven't been changed in over a year. Tap TDS-400, after membranes 4, after resins 0
 

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srobertb

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I should have mentioned i did change all of my filters, but the membrane because it was only a year old. I also didn't mention that I do have an extra di resin cartridge that I added on. But they are just basic color changing resins.
My initial gut impression from 1000 miles away is that something is off in the system beyond water. If I was confident it was my water: I would go over the system and make sure everything is plumbed correctly. Uou I would use a second tds meter on my output water. I would look at my storage and carrying containers. I would test for copper and heavy metals if you have a well (I equate wells with older homes and copper pipes).

so many times something isn’t working or is not working correctly and it’s because my dumb*ss put push connect a in place b when rebuilding it.

In the meantime: I would invest in potable water cans and go buy distilled/purified water from my grocery store or get Ro/di from the LFS until I got it sorted out.
 

landlubber

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I didn't see how large or small your system is but if it were me i'd be buying water from my LFS. I have a friend that insists on using her well water and has struggled to the point that soft corals are all that will withstand the fluctuations caused by season changes.
 

mdb_talon

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If you are keeping your filters changed frequently enough and ensuring your DI resin is replaced when needed, there is no reason it should be causing you issues.

That seems based off the assumption that a TDS of zero means that the water has no contaminants....which is certainly not true.

It is certainly possible the OP has contaminants coming through the well water that will not show up as a TDS.
 

josephxsxn

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Have you tested the TDS of your RODI water?

I had no issues when moved my tank from the city to the country on a well. Same DI setup and was using the old membrane for a long time before replacing it.
 

Viva'sReef

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Have you let your salt run out in your softener? I did that and it smoked my RO Membrane. I now have a huge brine tank that will hold 7x - 40lb bags of salt so I can go much longer without running out of salt in the brine tank. Test your TDS after the RO and see what your reading is.
 

josephxsxn

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Have you let your salt run out in your softener? I did that and it smoked my RO Membrane. I now have a huge brine tank that will hold 7x - 40lb bags of salt so I can go much longer without running out of salt in the brine tank. Test your TDS after the RO and see what your reading is.

Interesting, I use water pre-softener because it has lower TDS then post-softener on my well. I did add an extra sediment filter to my setup though.. booster -> 5micron -> 1micron -> carbon -> ro membrane -> anion DI -> cation DI -> mixed DI -> reservoir.
 

Viva'sReef

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Interesting, I use water pre-softener because it has lower TDS then post-softener on my well. I did add an extra sediment filter to my setup though.. booster -> 5micron -> 1micron -> carbon -> ro membrane -> anion DI -> cation DI -> mixed DI -> reservoir.
Spectrapure and another Reefer on here AZDesertRat (always commented on RO/DI Q's in the past) said this.....

Absolutely use softened water, this is the best thing you can possibly do for a RO membrane. The softener acts as pretreatment for the RO and does much of the hard work for it by removing calcium and magnesium and replacing them with sodium or potassium which is much easier for the membrane to deal with.

So, while the TDS may be higher post softener it's dissolved solids are much easier to remove for the RO membrane. Prior to my brine tank going empty, I had ran membranes for years before they started declining. This time, the RO membrane was only a few months old and my rejection rate went from 98% to 66% in about a week. Replaced the membrane and this new one has been running for 6 months, still at a 97% rejection rate.
 

Cell

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Just because one person can use well water does not mean it will work for someone else pulling from a different reservoir.
 
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blackflme

blackflme

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My house doesn't use a water softener. So maybe thats part of the issue. Wouldn't that just destroy my membrane and still produce good water? Also, if the water wasn't good, wouldn't that show in the ICP test? How are you guys determining your membrane is shot?
 

mdb_talon

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My house doesn't use a water softener. So maybe thats part of the issue. Wouldn't that just destroy my membrane and still produce good water? Also, if the water wasn't good, wouldn't that show in the ICP test? How are you guys determining your membrane is shot?

Hard water is one with lots of minerals. A softener removes many of those minerals thus making it easier work for an rodi unit. Technically much of the removal is more of an exchange, but the end result is still making it easier in your rodi unit.

An ICP test can only show you what they test for. It certainly does not test for everything that can ve in your well water.

Rodi units remove tds. That does not mean they remove every contaminant. Some pesticides and things can still get through. Not a big risk with city water, but well water is not regulated and is possible you have contaminants coming through even if you have 0 tds(ie not everything is a tds).

Best way to know if membrane is bad is test the tds before membrane and after membrane(but before DI). Depending on the membrane, temp, pressure, etc you can expect the membrane to remove 95% or higher of the TDS. Most membranes are advertised to remove 98 or 99%, but that is based off optimal pressure and temp.
 

Viva'sReef

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My house doesn't use a water softener. So maybe thats part of the issue. Wouldn't that just destroy my membrane and still produce good water? Also, if the water wasn't good, wouldn't that show in the ICP test? How are you guys determining your membrane is shot?
I would get a hardness test and see if you need a water softener in the first place. If you have hard water it will wreak havoc on Fridge water/ice maker, Dishwasher, washing machine, etc over time. Hard water will also leave hard water stains and spots on EVERYTHING!! That's what did it for us (pre-tank setup) the wife was going crazy so I bit the bullet and had a Kinetico installed.

I use the Inline TDS meter on my RO/DI unit. It reads before membrane, after membrane, before Di, after Di.
I know they are not super accurate but it's a reading nonetheless and good baseline to use for changing out cartriges.
 

josephxsxn

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Asolutely use softened water, this is the best thing you can possibly do for a RO membrane. The softener acts as pretreatment for the RO and does much of the hard work for it by removing calcium and magnesium and replacing them with sodium or potassium which is much easier for the membrane to deal with.

This time, the RO membrane was only a few months old and my rejection rate went from 98% to 66% in about a week. Replaced the membrane and this new one has been running for 6 months, still at a 97% rejection rate.
Used my membrane pre-softener for over 2 years seemed fine without issues. I'll get 3 TDS after the membrane that is easily cleaned up with the DI until it reads 0 before the reservoir.

Considering the diversity of well water it wouldn't surprise me if both situations exist were one should and one shouldnt use a softener before the membrane. I would get your water tested to see if indeed your pulling out things that the softener will help with, perhaps you are. But I know I used much more DI resin when going post-softener then pre-softener.
 
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