Testing Well Water Question

[Biglurr54]

I have a natural spring that feeds my house's water. I have been using RODI for all my water in my tank. Years ago, I used well water for top off on a small reef tank. I ran with well water as top off for 2 years. No issues. My RODI places the source water at 20-25 tds so its pretty clean to begin with. I am wondering if my RODI is needed. Is there anyway to test the water to see what those 20-25 tds are compromised of?

Can I take straight tap water, mix it with salt, and send it in for icp test to see if the water will be acceptable? Or will this not really give me a good picture of whats in the water?

Its time to replace filters, membranes, and di so I am willing to gamble on a $50 test kit to save or confirm the need for $200 in media!

 

[Lloyd Williams]

Pretty certain you can send in to icp. I worked at a water plant and sometimes we had to ADD dirt to clean water. If your tds is low and you’ve had no issues before go for it. But monitor. Or set up a small test system. Looks like you got a dexter’s laboratory opportunity here! Keep us posted!

 

[Ariel V Rosa]

If ypu are spending 200 plus dollars on filter media seems like an inflated number. That 20 to 25 TDS could be a lot of things, even copper and other heavy metals picked up on the way to the faucet it comes out of. You could test for it. Home depot has a free water test kit that covers the basics. Or send it of to a lab.

 

[Coralsea_co]

I have a natural spring that feeds my house's water. I have been using RODI for all my water in my tank. Years ago, I used well water for top off on a small reef tank. I ran with well water as top off for 2 years. No issues. My RODI places the source water at 20-25 tds so its pretty clean to begin with. I am wondering if my RODI is needed. Is there anyway to test the water to see what those 20-25 tds are compromised of?

Can I take straight tap water, mix it with salt, and send it in for icp test to see if the water will be acceptable? Or will this not really give me a good picture of whats in the water?

Its time to replace filters, membranes, and di so I am willing to gamble on a $50 test kit to save or confirm the need for $200 in media!

wells are usually suitable if they are far from urban areas.
This TDS usually contains bicarbonates, calcium, sulfate,chloride,sodium and magnesium and other trace elements.
In these cases, ICP testing will help you but note that the amount of TDS of the well will change in different seasons.
Aside from these cases،you should be sure of the absence of ammonia, nitrite,nitrate and phosphate!
Happy Reefing!

 

[Brad Miller]

I would be more worried about a lot of other things in "natural" water sources, be it well or surface run off, like nitrates from farm land and animal waste, fertilizers, fuels, oils, leaves and animal decay, leeching from unknown sources back when dumping all kinds of chemicals were allowed to be disposed of and still show up in our water 50 years later, along with all kinds of metals.....depends on where that water source comes from and could be running through untold miles of diffent landscape areas.

For this, you should have a local water conditioning company, like Culligan or Rainsoft do a free test, just say you're interested in your water quality and would like a free test to see if you would need any treatment equipment.

Then go down the road of using it for your tank.
It could take a long time, like years, for harmful metals and other junk to start showing bad tank results and by that time it would be a crisis.

 

[Biglurr54]

I had Culligan man out previously. He recommended a sediment filter. That was it. He said it was some of the cleanest water he's seen. It was bit hard but not enough to recommend a softener.

The spring was developed in 1830 to feed the barn. It's been flowing ever since. I live in a very rural area and have no farm land around. I own 30 acres surrounding the well.

I do worry about copper from the plumbing. I suppose I could test for it. I have a copper test kit.


The $200 is annual with sediment carbon and gac filters every 6months a new membrane and two new di cartridges.

 

[Brad Miller]

Copper from the plumbing is too minimal to even be concerned about at all...
TDS are nothing more than "total dissolved solids"
You want zero TDS and well worth it in the long run since little amounts of TDS add up to large amounts of TDS over time in your tank since once there in, they don't do anything but accumulate.
Water changes help with this but still not the desired approach for a reef tank.
Ro cartridge should be replaced only when a drop in output shows up in testing after it, same with the di.
Others have stated that depending on your usage of water through the unit, they replace theirs sometimes at up to a 5 year mark.

Sediment and others can be changed more often as needed.
And top off water for evaporation should only be rodi also.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Copper from the plumbing is too minimal to even be concerned about at all.

Not true. Copper from your own pipes can be too high. Sometimes over 1 ppm, which at least in my opinion, is far too high.

 

[JoshH]

The $200 is annual with sediment carbon and gac filters every 6months a new membrane and two new di cartridges.

I seriously hope you're not replacing your Membrane every year.... most membranes will last 3-5+ years...

 

[Brad Miller]

Copper is in ALL water supplies around the world naturally and is coming into your homes already in minute amounts.
it is a mineral, and the copper pipes in a home will not leech into the water in the pipes unless the water sits in the pipes for a very long period of time, which is unlikely in a home.

Scare tactics have been implored over the years about the dangers of this but in fact, our bodies need copper...maybe that's why God puts it in the water naturally

This is why we use RoDi....no need to worry about it then.

 

[JoshH]

Copper is in ALL water supplies around the world naturally and is coming into your homes already in minute amounts.
it is a mineral, and the copper pipes in a home will not leech into the water in the pipes unless the water sits in the pipes for a very long period of time, which is unlikely in a home.

Scare tactics have been implored over the years about the dangers of this but in fact, our bodies need copper...maybe that's why God puts it in the water naturally

This is why we use RoDi....no need to worry about it then.

The OP was implying not using an RODI system atall... in this case copper would be an issue even in miniscule amounts and this is what @Randy Holmes-Farley was directing his answer towards. Copper leeching from plumbing is definately not a concern for us but for our reef tanks can cause serious problems, rather quickly...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Copper is in ALL water supplies around the world naturally and is coming into your homes already in minute amounts.
it is a mineral, and the copper pipes in a home will not leech into the water in the pipes unless the water sits in the pipes for a very long period of time, which is unlikely in a home.

Scare tactics have been implored over the years about the dangers of this but in fact, our bodies need copper...maybe that's why God puts it in the water naturally

This is why we use RoDi....no need to worry about it then.

Copper from pipes is a known big issue to the EPA, and they set very high limits for potability (1.3 ppm) that can sometimes be exceeded. All you need to do is read enough water supply reports to know this is a concern, and 1.3 ppm is WHOPPING high for a reef. The EPA allows 10% of homes to exceed this level before an action is required. I agree that flushing helps. Does everyone do that before collecting water?

Copper is also present in some well water.

This is a section from an older article of mine with data to back up my assertion. I have not recently checked these same locations, and values today may be differen, but when I surveyed for the article, MANY cities had excessive copper in homes in their testing:

https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2004/1/chemistry

Toxic Metals In Tap Water: Copper
One of the biggest concerns for aquarists considering the use of tap water is copper. Copper is more toxic to marine invertebrates than it is to humans, so the EPA allows more in tap water than an aquarist would want in an aquarium. Specifically, the EPA has an action level at 1.3 ppm copper in tap water, and it is only a big problem (to the EPA) if more than 10% of the homes on the water supply exceed that level. For that reason, water supplies typically report the 90% level, meaning that 10% of homes exceed that stated value. Many also report the maximum level in any home tested.

Table 5 shows copper levels for a small selection of homes for all of the cities in this study. The reason that copper must be tested at the home tap is that most of the copper in public water supplies comes from the pipes in the home itself. Further, newer does not necessarily mean better, as fresh copper pipes might be even more inclined to release copper to the water than those that have had decades to build up protective coatings.

How much copper is too much? That is difficult to say, and certainly varies from organism to organism. In a recent test,5 Ron Shimek added copper to natural seawater and looked at the effect on sea urchin larvae. He found that concentrations above 10 ppb decreased the larval survival after 48 h, and that concentrations above 100 ppb killed all of them. Whether that translates into particular copper levels to be concerned about in typical reef aquaria is open to discussion. Nevertheless, it points out that copper is potentially toxic at levels well below the EPA action level of 1.3 ppm. That hypothesis is well supported by the literature on copper toxicity.6 Canadian Water Quality Guidelines for the Protection of Aquatic Life suggest that copper be kept to less than a few ppb in fresh water, but they do not provide a salt water recommendation.

So how do the water supplies stack up with respect to copper? For some homes, not well. Ten percent of the homes tested in Miami have more than 1100 ppb copper in their water. In Kansas City, Orlando, Phoenix, and certain districts in Houston, ten percent of the homes have more than 500 ppb copper. At least one of my neighbors in Boston has 1100 ppb copper.

What's the best case? That's hard to say for sure, but perhaps Central Arkansas, where ninety percent of homes have copper below 50 ppb. Nevertheless, ten percent of homes are above that level, and some may be significantly above that level.

Based on the data, if your home is among the highest in your district, your water likely will be unacceptable. Since most aquarists do not know the copper levels in their water, it can be a risk to use it. If you do choose to use it, there are some simple actions that you can take to help:

1. Test the water for copper with a test kit. Some of the kits available to hobbyists (Seachem and Hach LP Cube, #21938-00), for example) claim to detect copper at fairly low levels (10 ppb for Seachem and 50 ppb for Hach). Whether those limits are attained in practice or not, I do not know. But they likely will easily detect the very high levels in some tap water (500-1000+ ppb copper). Thus they can at least be used to screen out the worst offenders.
2. Let the water run for 5-10 minutes before collecting it. This will greatly reduce the likelihood of getting a high copper (or lead) level from water that has been sitting in your pipes for an extended period of time.

 

[Biglurr54]

I know in roofing you can place a copper ridge cap and that will prevent algae growth on that part of the roof. The ridge cap leaches enough copper to kill off algae on the roof below. I have to imagine copper in the pipes will do the same thing.