Challenging RODI on Reef Tanks. What’s Really in Tap Water & Optimizing Aquarium Filtration For It.
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ม.ค. 2024
- Ryan is back with 52SE, and this episode is all about making the BEST possible water for your reef tank or saltwater aquarium. Is using tap water a viable option? How do we get the most out of our RO/DI units? If you want to see what's changed in our understanding of mixing saltwater, you've found the right place!
#BRStv #52se
00:40 Can you use tap water in a reef tank?
01:38 Is a RODI system worth it?
04:00 Why salt mix requires RODI.
06:54 Phosphate and nitrate in tap water and reefs.
10:52 Toxic trace elements in tap water.
13:23 Reverse osmosis membrane. What it does and when to change it.
21:36 Sediment Filter. What it does and when to change it.
25:52 Carbon Block. What it does and when to change it.
34:54 DI Resin. What it does and when to change it.
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Legal Stuff
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This is by far and single handedly the best video of the SE series. This teaching mindset should have been the ideology behind the previous videos. Hopefully it can be moving forward.
Meet the tanks dragged a bit longer than anticipated but it might be clearer now what we were setting the stage for :)
This is hands down BRS’ best video ever. So informative, so comprehensive, and so understandable - thank you Ryan for presenting a master class on how to pour water.
glad to be of service :)
That was an excellent episode! So many of my questions have been answered!
This is REALLY good info Ryan, thanks! Didn't know I could check for pressure drops in the sediment to see if it's failing. 44:40
glad to be of service :)
I appreciate how this video makes clear that more isn’t always better when it comes to RODI systems. Much better to tailor the system to your specific water source rather than use a bazooka to kill a fly. For my nano tank, I store my RODI water in 5 gal. water bottles and that makes it much easier to track gallons of water produced for filter replacement.
Right tool right job :)
Wonder if i can use a brita water filter for nano tanks, ?
Love this BRS team!!!! Great job 👏
Thanks for the kind words :)
I considered myself an ro/di guru with my 7 stage double membrane setup; However I've learned something about dual chamber resin! Didn't know that that's how it worked. I shall be ordering some... oups
Big love to BRSTV! 52SE is killing it! keep up the great work guys!
Thanks, really trying our best to take everything we have learned and put it into one guide video :)
Thanks Ryan, think I finally figured out how to fix my tank after watching this
Made my day :)
This was so helpful for me! Thank you
thanks, glad to help
You know the car detailing community could learn a lot from you reefer folks. Standard practice there for getting purified water to avoid water spots is to just hook up some massive DI cartridges and burn through resin like no tomorrow and eat the cost.
One of your best videos 🏆 ❤
Thanks :)
That was awesome!!!
glad to be of service :)
Wow, a very informative video.
Thank you.
Glad to be of service :)
Great video
Thanks!
I'm here!
Most cities provide an annual city water quality report that you can use to determine what's typically in your tap water. You can then use that to determine if there's anything special you need to do to filter your water.
It's true. However most reefers don't know what on that report is of concern or at what level. They don't know because there is no clear scientific guidelines.
Really insightful episode, thank you! Would you have any advise for someone with very high TDS input water? My water comes from a well/borehole at between 950-700 TDS. In the house it goes through a softener, is pushed though at about 60 PSI, then comes out the RO at about 18-24 TDS in best case. Unfortunately my DI depletes after about 20 gallons before the TDS will start creeping from 0. It just completely unfeasible to keep changing the DI at that rate. I use 5 gallons a week in top up alone on a 60 gallon tank. Be interested to hear your thoughts, ideally, i'd like to reduce the TDS before the DI, but i'm all out of ideas. Thanks, D
Great video!! I'm getting a water report now cause i run the single beds and then mixed bed resigns but my anion depletes after a few hundred gallons. I'm betting silicates but excited to find out.
co2 is the most likely cause
@@BRStv is there a way to test and/or fix this?
I live in country with very clean tap water, and a lot of reefers over here use it in their tanks with great success, so it also depends a lot on where you live
It's true that it depends on where you live and some tap water is better than others. However Identifying water quality is pretty hard for the average reefer and a gamble for most. For what it is worth, the four samples we used in the video were all within 20 minutes of BRS and nearly the same county. Two of the cities share a boarder but dramatically different results.
Where ia this country is it on earth?!
Here in Fresno California we can grow stalagmites from our shower heads. I could have bought a yellow tang for the amount of money we have spent on filters and resin with BRS. WORTH IT.
@@eillyacostandinides3344 Sweden, so it's on the edge of the map, but technically earth
@m.cantsin7385 sweet mother of jesus, im gonna move to sweden. Probably cheaper than all that rodi filters im buying every month.
5 stage. Sediment carbon ro membrane and 2 di canisters
Nice video! In my house we have our own water softener unit (with some white powder inside wich i think is some kind of phosphate wich dissolves during time), for my RODI system is better to use the water before or after the softener unit? Also I recently added a booster pump and now the pressure is 8 Bar wich is higher than what you tested in the video, are there any disadvantages in using too high pressures?
Too high runs the risk of leaks. There is some debate on before or after a softener but I'd always install mine after.
Excellent series, my question is, does water temperature change any of the outcomes?
Thanks, cold water reduces the membrane performance. However, it's typically better to put effort into increasing pressure than temperature.
My question is what if I have well water is that ok?
Fascinating! So we live on a well with high TDS around 1200. Our water pressure is 50psi and I have just a small 30 gallon nano-reef setup right now. I was thinking about mixing my own salt water just to stop carrying 5 gallon jugs from the local fish store. Any recommendations? Ignoring cost, is a 7-stage system the best?
i would start with a good water softer with a lead filter maybe idk where you live. see how much that help tds then get best ro you can. Water is the only thing we keep in a reef light and pumps do nothing in swamp water :
Our well water has very high TDS as well. We use a whole house water softener and then run it through a 5 stage RO unit for the aquarium. Been working great for years and isn't that expensive. Only thing I had to add was a booster pump for the RO unit because our water pressure (around 40-50psi) just wasn't enough.
Ignoring cost the 7 stage 75 GPD is what I'd get in your situation. It will produce the purest water as well the pro series 3 stage dual bed resin will save a lot of money on water with TDS that high.
Is it better to use RoDi water instead of tapwater for my daughters freshwatertank?
No just a dechlorinator, same as it's not good to drink or for your plants
I work in a Pet store and we don’t have a RO/DI unit so our frag tank is running on Tap water only (tds around 35-45) and Softies and Lps encrusting corals grow like crazy!! However SPS don’t last a week we’ve noticed
Hard to say what is in the water bothering the SPS corals or if that's even it. That's the other end of using zero containment water, it eliminates one of the possibilities we need to consider when we run into problems. All about peace of mind.
Dang
Where is the best place to buy quarantined fish? Thank you so much. One had my fish for 7 years and don’t want to risk anything.
Marine collectors is where we get ours
Can i use a brita filter for nano tanks ??
A sink faucet filter is known as a "taste and odor" filter. Only reduces it to some degree.
I wish Ryan would have addressed the caveat of running RO membranes in the series “water saver” config: you still only have 1 flush valve and thus the first membrane is never properly flushed.
This is actually a common misunderstanding. When you open the flush valve on the second one it increases the flow rate through both near equal. I did consider mentioning this but didn't make the cut in the already 45 min video :)
@@BRStv fascinating thank you for the info!
You missed talking about the purpose of a flow restrictor.
Tried to get 15 years of RODI videos into a single video but even at 45 minutes It couldn't be done :)
It’s possible I have a good municipal source, but I have had a thriving reef tank on tap water and a dechlorinator for years now. I also realize I am probably the exception rather than the rule
Thanks for sharing. One of the challenges is the lucky are here to talk about it, the unlucky are often long gone :(
what happened to the 12 days of reefing? 7-12? and maybe do some more live shows ? I miss watching this channel it sucks you guys post one 15 min video maybe once a month . what happened? you guys built something amazing for all of us so hooked on learning about chemistry and science now your gone and not a single channel have yet to do what you do . take me back .
Thanks for the kind words and caring :) The holiday season messes with things a lot. Particularly this year. We hope to get to one of these longer format videos every other week and a special guest video on the opposing weeks. Coupled with some fish and coral shorts along the way :)
Question, Ryan, are you going to be present at Reefapalooza New York this year 2024?
Just committed to Orlando today. I'd like to do NY but havent booked it yet
well the last time we spoke was at the biome talk. my son braggs. About you even has you're mr chillies doll. LOL
Is the TDS meter battery operated or does it need to be plugged in? If it uses batteries, how often should they be replaced?
The ones one the RO unit are battery operated (at least mine are) and they last a long time (years, not months).
Oh wow that's nice, thanks for this info.
@@dominickyoung227I should clarify that mine come with an on/off button and I always turn them off after I check the TDS readings. Not sure how long the battery would last if they were always on (not sure if they turn off automatically)
@@jgallone That does seem like a very good way of conserving the battery for the meter. Thanks for the advice!
If you do go with tap water anyway, should you supplement trace elements?
That's complicated topic. If your water has unhealthy levels of copper, zinc or other trace elements I wouldn't want to dose more. If your water doesn't have those then I would want to dose the biologically beneficial levels. The fact that most reefers will never know what's in their water is a primary take away from the video. Start at zero and let a good salt mix create natural/beneficial levels. A good 2 or 1 part to maintain or replenish them.
What is the difference between RODI water, distilled water, and rainwater? Aren’t they the same?
RODI and Distilled water are different methods of creating pure water. Rainwater is dirty because it picks pollution from the air on the way down.
@@BRStv last question please, so is it safe and acceptable to use distilled water from let’s say Walmart for Your reef aquarium, if you cannot afford RODI unit?
RODI from a fish store costs about the same and a better option. Distilled is way better than tap however. @@charlesmorris6476
@@BRStv 👍
@@charlesmorris6476I used distilled water on my nano tank for years and worked great the only issue is that I think it was distilled in copper tanks or something cause I had issues with shrimp until I used rodi and never lost one since otherwise it works just the same it just a bit more expensive in the long run and if you have anything larger then a nano it’s a pain buying all those gallons
If you have a $5k tank and a $100 Ro system that sounds silly. Get the best one and save your self the pain. That is one thing i have learned the hard way. I started with tap water for 5 years was fine if water change was small amounts but as i spent more on the hobby lights pumps and what not it was clear i needed better starting points water, salts, clean up crews coral was just an after thought i was not at yet in the hobby.. point is spend your eggs at the start not at the end :
They say we don't maintain reef tanks, we maintain water. Healthy corals are just a result of doing that well :)
Running membranes in series reduces their life because you aren't properly flushing the second membrane, also it can actually reduce the capacity of your carbon blocks because you are doubling the flow rate through them...breakthru and capacity are highly influenced by flow thru rate of carbon blocks...the whole water saver argument is moot, because you should be doubling the rate of your permeate water if you double the rate of your output water...if it were truly a water saving technique, why not just run a 1:1 on a single cartridge...if you really want the best rejection and longest life of your membranes, you would run 2 75 gpd in parallel at 70-80 psi, with each having their own permeate line...
Some of this is commonly said but debatable.
1) The flow restrictor on the second membrane is the same as if you have one membrane, commonly around 500ml a minute. So a single membrane or the second on a dual setup would both be getting the same 500ml a minute flush, the first membrane on a dual is even better at 700ml. It is true that the TDS will be higher going into the second membrane but only about 30% higher. How much that matters is debatable. Going from 100 to 130 TDS or 200 to 260 TDS is not likely to reduce the life span in any way noticeable by the average reefer. Even going from 500 to 650 is questionable and might not produce a noticeable loss in life span. It's an informed decision.
2) On a single 75 GPD membrane, it's about 500ml of waste and 200ML of product a minute or 700ml a minute total to get 75 gallons a day. On a dual setup, it is 500ml of waste plus two 200ml product streams, so it goes from 700ml to 900ml a minute. So 28% increase in flow rate and water used but doubles the product water produced. In our testing, that slight increase in flow rate didn't have a material effect on real-time carbon block performance but dramatically reduced the gallons through them, increasing the life span of the blocks and sediment filters.
3) This all depends on your water. In the case of our water at the warehouse, the tap is ~100 TDS, and the waste or concentrate is ~130. Our 130 waste is not materially different than many people's 130 right out of their tap, so why not send it into a second membrane. This is commonly done in commercial RO facilities for efficiency. Often referred to as a double pass system. In most cases, I bet the life span of the membrane from water-saver configurations only loses a couple months, which is maybe ~$5 of useable membrane life every few years. This is likely grossly outweighed by water costs and prefilter replacement of the parallel install.
@@BRStv Good to know it doesn't reduce the life too much. I was always told to know if you had chlorine or chloramines to determine the type of chlorine blocks to get, then check the hardness of your source water, if it is soft, can go 2:1, if it was hard go 3:1. I run 3:1 at 80 PSI on a filmtec, running a 0.2 micron sediment and 2 of your universal blocks. I check the permeate water once a month for chlorine break thru, once it is detectible I replace both blocks. My membrane is 8 years old and still pumping out 2 TDS, and I also feed my ice maker/fridge with it. I will never go without an RO system again, even if I don't have a tank.
Please move to a less telepromptery style
I don't like Shorts. Please save them for a full video or start a new channel for them.
For you we'll get right on that!
Another 10,000 dollar gadget