Does anyone treat their RO/DI water?

[gee_lo]

I am a new reefer, using an RO/DI system, and am wondering about the water's preparation before entering the reef.

I know that the water must be aerated. But for what reason? And how long do you aerate the water. Is it OK to just leave the bubble stick in my RO/DI reservior and let it pump away all the time?

Also....is anyone adding chemical treatments to their ro/di water or just letting the filters and aeration take its course.

Thanks,

Angelo

 

[reefland]

I know that the water must be aerated. But for what reason? And how long do you aerate the water. Is it OK to just leave the bubble stick in my RO/DI reservior and let it pump away all the time?

Who says you have to aerate? RO/DI does not need to be aerate. If you are talking about chlorine in the water or something your carbon filters should be removing that before it reaches the RO membrane.

My RO/DI water for top-off gets mixed with kalkwasswer and dripped in. The RO/DI water for water changes just gets mixed with the salt mix.

Nothing fancy.

 

[Desolas]

If your just using the RO/DI for top off there is no reason to aerate, it isn't needed since you'll be adding a small amount of it (in general.)

When you are using it to make your change water you will want to aerate it to mainly mix the salt, but also RO water comes out oxygen poor so by aerating you are reintroducing oxygen back into the water.

 

[Anonymous]

Also....is anyone adding chemical treatments to their ro/di water

No need to add chemicals to your RO water. Products like RO-Rite are waste of money IMHO.

Louey

 

[gee_lo]

but also RO water comes out oxygen poor so by aerating you are reintroducing oxygen back into the water.

This is the reason the my LFS gave me when they told me to aerate the RO/DI water. (But this is the same LFS where an employee told me that "tap water would be fine for the reef!?!?" ).

But it seems that reintroducing o2 back into the water would be a good thing. I guess its not necessary since I'm only adding a small amount at a time for top offs (?)

Thanks,

Angelo

 

[O P Ing]

hi.
It is perfectly fine to aerate/condition the RO/DI, but there is very little benefit associate with it that it is just a wastte of time. Maybe you LFS want to sell more air pump???

Ohter people use aragonite filter to add buffering to the topoff, but it is not very popular among reefers. Using kalk is a good way to add calcium if there is no reactor. If they tell you to adjust the pH of RO/DI , stay away from them. If they tell you to aerate the water, divide their experience by a factor of 10.

 

[robbinson]

mmm - why wouldn't you adust ph of freshwater top up r/o?

I keep my r/o in a 30g plastic storage pail - I have a maxijet head in the pail just to keep the water circulating prior to use and a heater in there to keep the water the same temperature as my tank. When I want to use the r/o for top up - I add ph puffer to the water I am adding to the tank. When I need to do a water change - I transfer fresh r/o from my storage pail to another paid, mix in salt and aerate with a power head for an hour or so - then pump it into my tank. Since I use well water, I sometimes add water conditioner as an added precaution (but that is over kill after the r/o process).

 

[O P Ing]

hi.
I don't see anything wrong with your water change proceedure, but for top off, you add the buffer only if your tank need it. You add the buffer to the tank, but if you add it to the RO/DI, that is fine too. However, if you add buffer to the RO/DO only to "condition" it disregard the parameter in your tank, then you are doing it wrong. Without proper water change, your water parameter may get out of balance because of the unneeded buffer added via topoffs. But with regular water (sound like you do), you will not realize the problem because of dilution. This is why regular water change is important for most people.

pH of really pure water (like RO/DI) can be a tricky thing to measure because he ultra-low ionic content. For pH to define well, you need enough ion in the water to facilitate the dissociation of water molecule to a proton and HO-. If there is insufficient ions in the water, the pH is a funny thing to define and not easy to measure. Blindly adding buffer/conditioner to RO/DI water is like tilting the direction of a space shuttle launch depend on the wind direction. Most people suggests that you add a bit of salt to the RO/DI before using a pH meter to get measurement...