Water purification without RO?

[Cai]

I've been in the hobby for about 2 years. Presently running a small reef mainly with soft corals etc. Here in Helsinki, Finland, water is decent, and I pay for water used... Sooo, I have not used RO, and thus far with decent results (I flitrate with active coal the water before adding it to the tank). But looking at possibilities of using other means of purifying water from phospahets etc. Anybody have any experience on this? have you tried for example Kold steril?

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[Anonymous]

You can do a search on kold steril ("cold sterialization", a type of ultra-filtration) here as well as other board like RAMR, and google, and see what experience other has. It seems to be more popular in place where the price of water is a consideration, but RO is one of the best water filtration methods around. Is there any particular reason that you don't wnat to jump into the band wagon and get a RO?

 

[Expos Forever]

Welcome to RDO!

Kan du svensk? Jag bodde i Stockholm, Sverige i 1990. Jag hade en tjej kompis some bodde i Turku (Naantali?).

DM

I think the problem with an RO in this case is the high cost of water and that the RO unit wastes so much during rejection...

 

[Cai]

The shortcomings with RO from my perspective is the considerable amount of wastewater created. In the summer (which here means with luck 3-4 months) the wastewater can of course be usd for gardening, but in the winter that is not an option.
Basically, I think in principle there should be a more effective way to get reef-quality water. Call it stubborness... Maybe I have to capitulate at some point, we'll see.

Cheers, Cai

 

[mooner]

I catch a lot of my "waste" RO water. It's still filtered quite a bit with charcoal and micron sediment pre-filtration and is every bit as "purified" as those tap filters you can get at Sam's or Walmart are gonna get it. I use it for drinking water, coffee and tea. The rest I toss out but you could use a good portion of it for indoor plants, cooking or whatever with a bit of effort put into scheduling your RO creation and buying a few cheap plastic jugs for short term storage.

There would be some waste if you couldn't use it all but it sure is cheaper than buying RO from the LFS. At least here in the USA. Not sure how pure your water is that you are using now but I bet it's nowhere near the quality you could get with a basic RO unit.

BTW, most of us "pay for water used" as well. I certainly do.