Removing Silicates

[Anonymous]

You can use just DI to help with your trouble. But lemme suggest something I found out the hard way...

I had a huge diatom problem. They were making long brown stringy globs all over my tank. I wanted those suckers gone. So I got a special silicate filter. Soon enough my diatoms were gone. Then the problem became hair algae, and I was in for an 18 month battle.
See the problem isn't just the silicates. The problem is also your phosphates and nitrates. If you got rid of PO4 and NO3, you'd likely see an end to your diatoms, and to all the nuisance algae.
I'd suggest you make sure your skimmer is powerful enough, and is kept clean. I'd also suggest spending 179 bucks on an RO/DI unit and doing water changes with some real quality water. I think that if you try to cheap this one, you'll be sorry later. Just my opinion.

 

[Ralph1]

Hi Jeff Aquarium Pharmaceuticals makes great water,only problem is with my tap water I only get 30 gallons per cartridge. If I could do it over I would have bought an R/O Di unit in the first place! I also used to charge the resin when it expired,what a pain in the a$%.I should be getting my R/O DI unit any day now.
HTH
Ralph

[ February 15, 2002: Message edited by: Ralph ]</p>

 

[MediaOne]

Okay, so I get the picture finally that I should have some kind of RO ... DI or RO/DI. The silicates in my tank are pissing me off because I get all the dead diatom skeletons on my back glass all the time.

Question: I don't have too much money to spend on this, can I use just a DI, like the one from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals to remove silicates?

Thanks!

 

[MediaOne]

Thanks for the help guys, I think you are both right and I should go for the RO/DI. I want to but it is a money factor... a will just cut back on movies or something haha.

 

[danmhippo]

hehe........Or try this,

I convinced my LFS to invest in a RO/DI unit and let it pump 24/7 into a 100G tank. He sells it for 50 cents a gallon. Within a month, he got the investment back already, and is now upgrading to a unit to pump 300G a day.

Not many people wants to buy the unit and run cables and water lines all over the house. Especially if you factor in the "accidental neglegence" to leave it running and flood the whole floor, having a LFS that are willing to invest in it is not a bad idea.

Now, not only his saltwater customers are buying RO from him, even the FW customer too. He also has a separate holding tank for NSW that use RO with IO salt. He sells them for a buck a gallon. He is happy and his customer are happy too!

 

[fsa]

I got what's called a bare bones R/O unit from Corallife about 4 or 5 yrs ago. Makes 10 gallons a day (on a good warm day). Back then cost about 80 or 90.00. Don't know if that might be in your price range or not or if they even still make it. I only use it for the fish tank. It hooks up to an outside water faucet, so everything is outside. Back then I got it at www.thatfishplace.com. HTH

 

[AnotherGoldenTeapot]

You can regenerate the resin in the Tap Water Purifier. The chemicals required are cheap.

 

[Ben1]

The chemicals may be cheap but seperating the resins is a pain. Not worth it IMO. Kent Marine makes a CTA membrane bare bones for 75$ hook the good water line to the Aqaurium Pharm DI unit in line and you have a functional RO/DI for 105$. I did this for a while but needed more GPD so went with the 35 GPD kent HI-S RO/DI