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what water to use
- Thread starter Bryan
- Start date
by DI i assume you mean deionized but what is RO. What is in or in this case i believe whats not in deionized or RO water that is in tap water. Also what is a reactor as aposed to a filter as i mentioned in another post these are the things i don't know anything about but i want to learn.
Bryan said:
Reverse Osmosis .its a water purifier.
Here's a pic of my RO unit:
RO/DI is reverse osmosis/deionized water they typically have cartridges for each in the various stages of the filter. A few of our LFS sell RO/DI water, so you could check with them. Some folks have used distilled until they got their RO/DI up and running. We purchased our water from Trop before we bought ours
What's in Tap water? chlorine, chloramines, silicates (not removed by RO/DI, but that's a whole other rant), copper, calcium, nitrates, phosphates (blah blah blah). Lots of stuff you don't want in your reef.
What's in Tap water? chlorine, chloramines, silicates (not removed by RO/DI, but that's a whole other rant), copper, calcium, nitrates, phosphates (blah blah blah). Lots of stuff you don't want in your reef.
Bryan,
RO is reverse osmosis. It removes contaminants via principle of osmosis and a semi permeable membrane. it can reduce ionic impurities by roughly 97-99%. It is often used in conjunction with DI resin. The water is usually filtered through prefilters such as carbon, then sent via RO and finally DI. DI water is fine. It is usually sent via this method to save the work of the DI resin. It's not easy for most people to regenerate DI resin so that is why both are usually used together.
Distilled water is collected a little differently. It is evaporated and allowed to recondense. It is also considered a very pure form of water. It does not remove ionic charges though as they can recollect on the condensation process. In labs, usually, distilled water is used in conjunction with DI resin if a completely ion neutral medium is needed. Distilled water is fine if a biologically pure (free from bacteria) medium is needed.
All of these types of water are usually fine. Distilled is easy to buy but not easy to make. RODI is easy to make but does waste a lot of water.
RO is reverse osmosis. It removes contaminants via principle of osmosis and a semi permeable membrane. it can reduce ionic impurities by roughly 97-99%. It is often used in conjunction with DI resin. The water is usually filtered through prefilters such as carbon, then sent via RO and finally DI. DI water is fine. It is usually sent via this method to save the work of the DI resin. It's not easy for most people to regenerate DI resin so that is why both are usually used together.
Distilled water is collected a little differently. It is evaporated and allowed to recondense. It is also considered a very pure form of water. It does not remove ionic charges though as they can recollect on the condensation process. In labs, usually, distilled water is used in conjunction with DI resin if a completely ion neutral medium is needed. Distilled water is fine if a biologically pure (free from bacteria) medium is needed.
All of these types of water are usually fine. Distilled is easy to buy but not easy to make. RODI is easy to make but does waste a lot of water.
i'm sure lots of people will make faces at me for this.... have had a reef tank for 3 years, and i'm gonna hook up my first ro/di system this weekend...
it all depends on where you live water might be perfect in my are but horriable in your ill still go with an ro/di unit like said. Corals arent cheap i bought one for under a 100bucks