Trying to get on bird with RO/DI water and storage

[bigkamp]

I’m tryn to understand all this... it’s just tripping me out looking at what it cost to get this stuff then the short lifespan of the equipment and the fact that replacement media’s cost nearly if not in some cases cost more then the entire unit. At what point do we just add whole house systems then just run a single line to a di under the tank... seems to me that would be WAAAY more cost effective and give us soft water to drink and shower with... outside of apartments or rentals in general... or even small cubes that seem super popular I get not being able to but... making 135gallons in one of them small under sink systems would need a filter thing replacement atleast once from what I’m reading... what do you guys that are diy low budget big tanks doing for your water? Outside of replacing a lot of filters and having all the auto water change sumps and stuff... I’m talking about the hands on maintenance big tank builds low tech... I’m just shocked at the small amounts of water produced... a whole house unit is 400-1500 for a year-5 years full house... can get more expensive to get alil longer then that but most can’t afford to go that big... but there are big fancy hotels with the entire building with water softener... so scaling up and producing more is def cost effective and have u ever took a shower in soften water just rinsing your hair out and washing off all them pollutants is incredible... why do we treat our corals and anemones and fish better then our seles while spending more then We would hooking ourself a up too lol anyone go this route or look in to the cost of scaling up? Any pics or ideas? Anyone in the industrial water softening biz? Or been to a fancy resort and experienced the “softest hair I’ve ever had omg!” As everyone I’ve ever heard shower in the heavenly water say lol I’m googling storage tanks and tubing to run all over and I’m like I can just buy this... https://www.homedepot.com/p/AQUASUR...tal-Metered-Water-Softener-AS-HS64D/311245270

 

[Urtoo]

Water softener and RO/DI are vastly different. ION exchange vs ripping it all out.
Look at Hospital RO/DI systems, then see that these are actually cheap to get home access to perfectly sterile water to add chemicals and temper to how we want for our reefs.

 

[Urtoo]

Also, Senper Fi brother.

 

[shadow1013]

Yeah you are going to still want an RODI unit even if you have a water softener, but it will help make parts of the RODI last longer.

 

[Greg P]

Not sure I'm understanding why you think an RO or RODI unit is so costly.
A simple 3 stage RO unit is less than $200. Carbon and Prefilters are less than $10 ea and maybe cost you $60/yr for replacements.
Membranes are $50ish and can last up to 5 years
If you need DI, the costs are still low.

You don't need the 400-1500 you wrote about

 

[bigkamp]

Also, Senper Fi brother.

My son just left for the island, first Marine in the family very proud! Thank you for your service

 

[bigkamp]

I’m going off of the spin out white tubes things... not the clear cup looking ones I haven’t found good info on the upkeep for them... also this water softener would be after the filter like the stuff under the sink that a separate cost if I’m not mistaken... so it would be a couple hundred more then just the water softener... I’m just thinking I’d rather have the house as soft as possible before using the last stage thing that I can’t use for drinking water to make up salt water for the tank with I believe u can get washable media for certain types... I use declirinated tap water in all my tanks as of now never had an issue with fish... my lights should be here 2mro I’m gonna go get a test frag and send out a water sample for lab testing sooner or later just to see what one dealing with the. I’ll decide but I know it’s hard water 300ppm but I also have softer water media on the way for my can filters that is the washable stuff I’m talking about...on Amazon... I dont know anything about “ro/di” don’t even know what it stands for I’ve heard it in videos but I’m still tryn to figure this all out...

 

[Greg P]

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[Rubberfrog]

I’m going off of the spin out white tubes things... not the clear cup looking ones I haven’t found good info on the upkeep for them... also this water softener would be after the filter like the stuff under the sink that a separate cost if I’m not mistaken... so it would be a couple hundred more then just the water softener... I’m just thinking I’d rather have the house as soft as possible before using the last stage thing that I can’t use for drinking water to make up salt water for the tank with I believe u can get washable media for certain types... I use declirinated tap water in all my tanks as of now never had an issue with fish... my lights should be here 2mro I’m gonna go get a test frag and send out a water sample for lab testing sooner or later just to see what one dealing with the. I’ll decide but I know it’s hard water 300ppm but I also have softer water media on the way for my can filters that is the washable stuff I’m talking about...on Amazon... I dont know anything about “ro/di” don’t even know what it stands for I’ve heard it in videos but I’m still tryn to figure this all out...

If you don't know what "rodi" is, twenty minutes on Google will take care of that.

I have a whole house water filter and I love it for showers. It does not produce reef ready water.

 

[Urtoo]

I have a whole house water softener. It replaces some harder elements with Potassium elements.
Then, I have the RO/DI filter off of the main house line that is after the softener, and rip all of the other chemicals and solids and have 0tds water. Well, as close to 0TDs that my home use testing allows me to see

 

[NickCage007]

Softner systems and "reverse osmosis de ionized" are very different. The systems BRS sell are very easy to maintain, and honestly not expensive to keep running, at all.
So, the key is to know whats in the source water, before u even set anything up. Have it tested, take a sample of the water, from where u plan to hook it up, and find out whats in it. Then u can build the unit, for that, like if theres heavy sediment, use two of those, or if lots of metals, use 2 carbon chambers, but, point is, build it, for YOUR home setup.

Im on well water. So, i was burning thru filters like crazy, on a standard setup. I tested my water, and it was iron, that was heavy, so, i re configured my setup, and now, i can make like 5000 gallons before i need to spend $30 on di resin again. And thats it.

I replace the rest yearly, just because. Its not bad. Just approach it smart! Good luck!

 

[Old Fritz]

shot you a dm. Looking to get rid of one

 

[theatrus]

As others have said, a water softener is just one type of water processing equipment, and it may be beneficial to still use one, but it in no way substitutes for what other filters that are used to strip water ready for salt water systems. Specifically, a water softener uses a resin bed (much like DI resin) to pull Ca+ and Mg ions to the resin. The softener also runs a regeneration cycle using either salt, or potassium salt, to pull the Ca/Mg ions back to the brine solution. In turn, the softener will always leave some salt or potassium back through the water supply.

They do, however, nothing for:

- Removing sediments and large particles. Some water supplies are pretty dirty and turbid (river, lake fed). This is mostly done very cheaply using a polyster floss, and mostly to prevent plugging downstream filters.
- Removing chlorine and chloramines. This requires either a binding agent (e.g. Amquel), degassing (works for chlorine, very slow for chloramines), or a solid filter which can bind, the ubiquitous carbon block. Carbon blocks also remove a lot of other elements that sit in the organic space, and are very cheap.
- Rejection of ions and other things that are not water: this is the RO membrane, which is basically a mechanical filter with pore sizes of 0.001 micron, which is larger than water but smaller than a whole lot of things (its more diffusion than filtering but its semantics). Since its a mechanical filter, as long as its not exposed to things like chlorine which damage the material its made of, it can be flushed and reused for quite a long period of time. Flushing effectively washes over the filter membrane to unclog it, like one would wash a filter pad.

The DI resin bed used after RO is effectively a water softener, capturing the remaining ionic elements. However, it doesn't use a recharged resin as that would then leak salt back into the system. Since its after the RO membrane, the bulk of things it would remove have already been remove,d making it economical to run.