Can you Use RO water only or does it need to be RO/DI?

RODI is better than RO only, but RO only is better than tap water. Some people are successful with tap. For me, I bought an RODI unit day 1 and never looked back.
 
I use Ro only and never seem to have any issues but im using the extra stage for more carbon filtering.
 
the parameters in your tank are only as good as the source water. that said, even ro/di can be worse than ro or even tap if the filters are old. what you want to do is measure your tds. a fish only system can handle some fluctuation or higher numbers, where as a reef needs as close to zero as you can get. mine is reading 4 atm for my reef, i will need new filters very soon. i will change filters before it gets to 10 and that is pushing it.
 
@Burbarry wrote:
I use Ro only and never seem to have any issues but im using the extra stage for more carbon filtering. said:
Make sure that stage is before the membrane. If after it can leach phosphate back into your cleaned water.

Titus is correct. I have seen people run somewhat successful reefs on tap water. My tap water is 212, after RO its 9, then zero after the DI. Some people don’t change the DI until its starts to read from 5-10. That makes me think I would be ok just running a RO. But for the minor savings, the risk is not worth it.
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I'm pretty picky on water and will replace my sediment and carbon filters when TDS hits above 6 (I usually get 4 - 5 out of the RO stage) and never let my DI get to the point where it reads anything other than zero. I definitely notice a reduction in output rate as the filters get used up.
 
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