Water Softener

[Crabs McJones]

Only in Wisconsin! What else did I hear out there....pop and grinders for soda and a sub sandwiches....and the tailgate at Brewer's stadium had to include Brats cooked in beer....but my favorite, and what I miss is Kopps Ice cream in Milwaukee (Glendale)....not far from my place in Brown Deer.

Anyway.....



First off, there is a crude test for CO2 in your water. Draw a glass of water from the tap and immediately measure pH. Let that glass sit around for a day. Measure pH again. If the water went from acidic to more neutral, it typically is a sign for high CO2 in your water. You could speed this test up a bit if you have a pump and bubbler. Bubble the water and after about 30 minutes, measure pH.

Two ways to bubble your water:

1. Make RO water only and collect. Bubble this water for a day. Using a small/slow pump, pump it through the DI.

2. And this DIY method was from the Spectrapure site....

Procedure for aeration for CO2 removal

RO product water is collected in a 3 feet tall PVC column with an air stone resting at the bottom. Air from an air pump is pumped into the column with RO product water. Degassed water (almost free of CO2 ) is collected from the top of the column and then gravity fed into the Deionization cartridge.

Beer Brats and of course....beer! This monday only at my house

 

[Crabs McJones]

And by the way, thank you everyone, this is great information!

 

[Hitman]

On a side note I just noticed where your from. I grew up North West of you in Chetek. I miss snowmobiling but I sure don’t miss the snow! Lol

 

[redfishbluefish]

I know this is a stupid question, but is the high CO2 from the source water or caused by the sediment filter or water softener?

CO2 is coming from the raw water...typical to certain aquafers

 

[Hitman]

CO2 is coming from the raw water...typical to certain aquafers

This I did not know!

 

[Crabs McJones]

On a side note I just noticed where your from. I grew up North West of you in Chetek. I miss snowmobiling but I sure don’t miss the snow! Lol

If you ever want to come pick up some, feel free!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Funny to come across this thread, I spent all day at spectrapure yesterday trying to fine tune my rodi unit.

We had discussions about softening water before going into the prefilters and then membrane.

As already said in this thread softeners remove calcium and magnesium. By removing those elements before sending it through the membrane will prolong the life of your membrane as well as increase your rejection rate by almost an entire percentage point. Which in the long run is going to prolong the life expectancy of the DI resin.

Short answer, yes, when possible connect your rodi to softened water.

 

[Hitman]

If you ever want to come pick up some, feel free!

Thanks but I’ll pass!!! Lol

 

[MrsBugmaster]

what type of bubbler unit would you suggest and how would it be set up? Sorry @Crabs McJones not trying to hijack the thread. Im moving into a new house also that uses well water and this is a concern for me too.

just a simple airstone.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

I know this is a stupid question, but is the high CO2 from the source water or caused by the sediment filter or water softener?

I have lived in several different houses all with water softeners (city water) and never had any issues until moving to this house on well water. I believe it is the well water.

 

[mta_morrow]

I have always hooked up post softener in 2 houses.

I burned thru DI resin in my prior hose and that supporting a 30 gallon AIO. TDS was anywhere between 380-440.

Now in this house TDS is a steady 83 on the inlet. I just changed resin for the first time at a year and 3 months and hundreds of gallons of water.

Besides that, I’m now running dual membranes, which may help as well.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

There is a lot of iron in our well water. Everything inside my house will look like this if I don’t use a softener with iron fighter salt

 

[adrianr514]

Okay, so along with @Sisterlimonpot we both spent the better part of the day with @SpectraPureInc. We have been working together and alongside them to get our RO/DI systems tuned to get the max performance out of them. Let me tell you something, their shop is literally a chemistry lab for water. It's not just a random shop that puts together parts that they order wholesale. They have multiple test benches, spectrophotometers and other devices that I have no idea what they're called. These guys study every single possible part of water and what could be in water and develop in house solutions to deal with your specific water.

While we were there we received a crash course on how RO/DI systems work and it is actually is a more involved process than one would think. The biggest thing we learned I would say that 0ppm TDS water isn't always contaminant free. The 0ppm TDS can actually read from 2.21in EC all the way down to 0.000 in EC , for reference 0.001ppm of TDS will still read a 0.057 in EC.

Secondly we learned the importance that softened water plays in making RO/DI. To be an NSF certified membrane they need to be tested with a softened water value 250ppm TDS. That along with 60 P.S.I and 76F water temperature is where they calculate the standard rejection rate of the membranes.

I started my hobby with planted tanks and I am big on freshwater shrimp. The kinds of shrimp I have require a certain General Hardness level to be able to develop their exoskeletons and molt properly. Anything over 8 degrees of GH and you are going to start having dead shrimp due to failed molts. I did what anyone wanting to keep shrimp would do and check my GH from tap, the lowest reading I ever received was 26 degrees (463ppm). That's a lot of Calcium and Magnesium to be throwing into your RO system. Imagine getting all that hard water build up you see around your sinks and faucets but inside your RO system clogging up your filters, lines, fittings and membranes.

I live in an apartment so I do not have the luxury of installing a water softener in my home so I asked about what options they had. They then showed us a specially formulated resin that they have to use in-line before your RO pre-filters to soften the water. I was extremely doubtful that this 10x3 canister could make any dent in my water hardness but it was affordable enough to give it a shot.

Here is what it looks like:

So here came the fun part, the very first thing I did was run my RO system without the water Softener to get a baseline performance of my Unit. After 5 gallons of RO these were my numbers (Note this is not DI numbers only RO)

Its hard to read but input was 709 ppm

output was 8 ppm:

Next up was to install the water softener and test the input and output again and here are the results.

791ppm In:

4ppm out:

So with just the addition of the water softner I went from a rejection rate of 98.9% to 99.5%. That $30 water softener investment already paid for itself as it just doubled my DI's Capacity.

The next step was to test the GH of the tap water and the GH of the softened water. I disconnected the line from the water softener that goes to the RO unit and filled a container that had been pre rinsed with 0ppm RO/DI water to avoid any contamination.

To test the water samples clean RODI rinsed glasses were used to avoid as much contamination as possible and new never before used pipettes where used. I tested with GH test strips and the API GH test and here are my findings.

The API GH test is supposed to turn the water orange when calcium and magnesium are present and then drop by drop you count until the test turns green. You count the number of drops and that gives you your GH level. The test strips are to be put in the water for 3 seconds and then let stand for 20 seconds before you take the reading.

Tap water (Right glass and tests) came in at 36 degrees of general hardness or 631ppm which you can see that the test strip also gave a high reading.

Softened water (Left glass and tests) came in undetectable. From the very first drop the water did not turn orange. instead it was a very light green, almost yellowish due to the dilution levels. To verify I added drop by drop and all it did was turn more green and never once turned orange. I stopped trying after 10 drops. The test strip also was a light color that wasn't represented on the chart when comparing it to the legend.

Here are those pictures to get a look at my results.

So the question comes, should a water softener be used when making RO/DI the answer for me is always. Now with my GH tap level I don't know how long my resin will work before being expended. For that I am using a volumizer that counts the amount of gallons of water that pass through to gauge just how long I can go without needing to change it. I plan on testing my water's GH every 50 gallons to ensure I am still getting use out of the resin.

Heres a picture of my RO/DI set up for those of you who would like to see it.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Now that's a detailed right up from a hobbyist perspective.

 

[ca1ore]

You want to hook up the RO/DI after the water softener.

And you didn't mention....is the new house on city water or well water. If well water, and you're burning through DI....most likely CO2 in the water. A bubbler unit will handle getting rid of the CO2.

I agree with this. Water softener exchanges calcium and other ‘hardness’ ions for sodium (or potassium if you choose to use potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride to regenerate the resin). Either way, it’s the anion portion of your DI module that gets used up. Cannot see that sodium swapped for calcium/etc. would eat it any faster. I am on a well, then through a house softener, and I switched to running separate DI stages. My anion resin lasts about 500 gallons, the cation is well over 2, 000 and show no sign of depleting. Mixed bed lasts about twice as long as the anion.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I didn't, I brought my membrane and they were able to test it. And they were extremely helpful explaining the nuances of rodi...

 

[adrianr514]

What an insighful writeup dude! I need to get ahold of @SpectraPureInc and see about my system. I bought a used one off a reefer here in Tucson getting out of the hobby. He was getting 0 TDS at his house, but I'm getting 135. I bought replacement cartridges from Spectrapure, but have yet to install them. I haven't needed to produce my own water since I haven't set up my 90 yet. It's easier to stop by the lfs on Tuesdays when they have half price water. Looks like I might need to make a trip up there and visit their office. @adrianr514 @Sisterlimonpot did you guys bring water from your house when you went up there? If so, how much should I bring?

didn‘t bring water. Instead I brought my whole RO unit.

 

[KenO]

You mentioned using a volumizer to measure water flow. Can you show and explain what you are using.

 

[SpectraPureInc]

What an insighful writeup dude! I need to get ahold of @SpectraPureInc and see about my system. I bought a used one off a reefer here in Tucson getting out of the hobby. He was getting 0 TDS at his house, but I'm getting 135. I bought replacement cartridges from Spectrapure, but have yet to install them. I haven't needed to produce my own water since I haven't set up my 90 yet. It's easier to stop by the lfs on Tuesdays when they have half price water. Looks like I might need to make a trip up there and visit their office. @adrianr514 @Sisterlimonpot did you guys bring water from your house when you went up there? If so, how much should I bring?

@KingFitz If you'd like, send some photos of the unit to [email protected] and we can verify the plumbing, etc. I can then send you instructions on how to test and replace the filters properly. If you swing by our office, give us atleast a 24 hour heads up that way I can prepare for any testing that may be needed.

In most cases, used units can be salvaged and if the hardware is OK then the filters only should be looked at and replaced. A pressure gauge, chlorine test kit, and TDS meter will tell us exactly how the unit is working.

I look forward to chatting with you!

Daniel

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Right on Daniel!

One thing that shocked me was when I brought my BRS unit in, they didn't try to blames the hardware and sell me a spectrapure unit. They simply tailored what I had to get the best production.

Before my visit, I was going through DI twice a month and now it lasts 3 months and this latest one has gone even longer. It is time for some replacement filters. in which I need to make a trip.... Love having you guys local!!!