RO/DI water reservoir a bit slimy

stAlphonzo · Sep 21, 2018

I have been making RO/DI water into a 20 gallon Brute trash can, the gray one, which I believe is food/aquarium safe. I have noticed that the sides of the container feel a bit slick to the touch after a week or so. Slimy is a bit of an overstatement, but it definitely feels like there is a film forming. The TDS meter says 0 and the other filter stages are pretty new too though it happened before I changed those as well. Has anyone else seen (or felt) this before? I am using it to mix up salt water now, since I finally about ready to start my first reef tank. Just want to know if there is something I should be concerned about before I dump it into my tank.

Thanks!

lapin · Sep 21, 2018

Its some sort of bacteria or algae growing. Its in the air and everywhere. You could scrub it with a scrubby pad and hot water. The salt will prob kill it.

stAlphonzo · Sep 21, 2018

I do clean it out from time to time, usually after it gets low for some reason. But, it always returns. Interesting point about the salt possibly killing it. The slime is in the fresh water reservoir. I just set up one for saltwater today since I'll need 40 gallons pretty soon. I should know in a few days if that's true. Having thought about it a bit more, I should probably get a hand-held TDS meter just to make sure the water in the tank is at 0 as well.