RO/DI

[Anonymous]

Can I get away with just running RO, or should I use DI too? Just on my experience, I have had no problems with diatoms during the winter months, but as soon as the weather gets warmer, and the days lengthen, the river water I use for my reef causes small diatom blooms. So I invested in a Coralife RO. Just what is taken out with RO? And will it take out the silicates, or does the DI do that? Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

The best way to find out is to test your water for TDS. Ro will remove some Silicates but they do make High Silicate removal RO membranes.


If you have high silicates after RO the DI will burn up fast IME.
_________________
Bob Long Intimidator

 

[Anonymous]

you CAN do it sure, just like you can use straight tap water with a dechlorinator. How good will it be? Well depends upon the water quality to start with.

If you had a membrane that got rid of 95% of TDS, with 200 TDS water from the tap you'll end up with roughly 10 TDS coming out. Now that isn't terribly much, but if you have much higher like 800 TDS, then you'll have 40 TDS which starts to get significant.

Bottom line, more nutrients that will be the baseline for any sort of water change, ie you'll never get below that amount with water changes regardless of how often or large.