Ro/di or ro filter

B

bolis03

[Can some please let me know what is the difference between a RO / DI and a RO water filter. Which of the two could i also drink the water.]
 
[R/O or reverse Osmosis drastically reduces the TDS of your water. (Makes it better) It does not get the TDS reading to 0 (0 is ideal for a reef tank).

Deionization takes that R/O water and further reduces the TDS reading. (Hopefully to zero).

RODI water tastes rather weird. Most people that want to drink the water will disconnect the DI part of their RODI unit and use just the RO water for drinking.

Marc has a good explanation of it on his website: Marc's Site]



Edited By JumboAg99 on 1106084729
 
[You can drink the RO/DI water if you choose - it's got a fairly low pH - around 4.5 iffen I remember and is pretty danged close to being distilled water - tastes pretty danged flat.

Water gets its 'taste' from dissolved gases and dissolved minerals. New Orleans water has a lot of dissolved sulfur in it - so drawing a pot of water for your coffee there is the perfect time for your morning God Yell as no one could tell the difference as that rotten egg odor can be pretty strong! I guess we can not talk about taking a hot shower in that water too...

Kent does sell a 'Remineralizer' mix of dry chemicals that you can add back to your ro/di water to make it more palatable if you choose. I did buy a jar of it and used it once for curiousity. Far easier to collect the 'waste water' and use it for drinking and cooking.
One thing for sure, your coffee and tea will amaze you at how good they are when you are using the 'waste water' to brew them!]
 
[Chuck

I did not go look this up and I may be wrong and you turn out to be right, but...

I doubt the water would be a 4.5 PH. that would mean it was very acidic. I would guess it would be close to 7.0 which is neutral, neither acid nor alkaline.

Where are the alchemists on the board?]
 
[Well I'm no alchemist but it is correct that your pH should be somewhere around 7 from your DI stage. This is complicated by a couple things.

1) Meters can't measure accuratly in pure water so any reading your getting is suspect.

2) Depending on the CO2 level in your house, surface reactions that occur blah, blah you won't have perfectly 7.0 pure water!

To answer the original question you can drink either it is simply a matter of preference that some people don't like the DI water. Personally I go for full strength 330 TDS tap water!]



Edited By kwl1763 on 1106089806
 
[DI is the best thing since sliced bread. The problem is that the DI media works so well, it gets used up VERY fast. Have you seen those DI machines at LFS, for about $40? It shows you just hook this little cartrige upto your sink and make water, much faster then RO!!

Yes it is much faster, and with bad, high TDS tap water, you will get 30 gallons out of one of those cartriges. Now if you put RO behind the DI, you take out a TON of those TDS from the tap water before putting it through the DI media, this extends the life of the DI bed hugley, though you now make water at a snails pace. Well worth the investment and time IMO. One LFS told me they stopped using DI because there were no phosphates in thier tap water, which leads me to belive RO does not remove phosphates, one of the major things we want our water to be free of. I will need to confirm this sometime.]
 
[Since we are discussing drinking RO and RO/DI water, how often (if ever) do you sanitize the system with a cleaner of some sort. Since the water held in the drinking tanks (if one) has no antibacterial agents in it, my RO/DI suggests removing the membranes and sanitizing the system about 1 time a year. Has anyone had any experience with doing this and if so, how long did you wait.]
 
[I've never done it. I've had my unit for 3 years, and change the filters every 6 months. I will rinse out the acrylic sumps before reassembly.

I don't like the flavor of DI, so I have a Tee in the line going ot the DI, and collect RO water 1 gallon at a time, about two times a week. We refill small drinking bottles, and put those in the fridge as they are handy that way. We stopped buying nearly as many cokes as we used to, about 6 months ago.

I don't bother using RO water for cooking, coffee, tea, etc... just for drinking.

I've never used the wastewater for anything. It goes down the drain, unseen.

The storage containers we use should be cleaned out with bleach water (1:10), then left to air dry for 24 hours. This will sterilize it of any slime or algae that may be accumulating. If you make a barrel of water and the TDS is high, the container needs to be cleaned thoroughly.

I've no experience with the bladder tanks that some RO systems use, and have no idea how you'd clean those.]
 
[We have used the DI water for icecubes,drinking water, and coffee,tea,etc for the last year and I'm just now beginning to think about saving some DI filter life by bypassing the DI filter for all the drinking water. I'm not yet sure whether I'll notice a taste difference, but I'm hoping to get a bit more life out of the DI cartridges. As another alternative, I have thought about using bulk DI resin and loading my own using the replaceable housings Bulk DI Resin but haven't decided it was worth it yet.
The drinking holding tank with the bladders (as well as the permeate pumps) can apparently be sanitized with the bleach also (according to my supplier), but I do suspect it will cause some hardening of rubber/etc over time.... The site referenced above has instructions for using the bleach to sanitize the system in their library link if anyone is interested. Sanitation and Misc RO/DI Library Questions]
 
[Doug, do a taste test. Fill up some cups with DI water, and some cups with RO water, and ask your family members to taste one of each and announce their preference.

Do you remember those old ads "do the Pepsi Challenge" back in the 70's / 80's?]
 
[Marc,
Good Idea. I think I may try it this weekend as I plan to take it apart for cleaning anyway... now...where's my blindfold :p]



Edited By waterbeing on 1106165067
 
[When i worked at a local lfs, the owner happened to be a dentist as well, and i was told that drinking DI filtered water frequently would erode the enamal of your teeth. Apparantly this is just true of the DI part, and not RO. Don't know how true this is, it's just what i was told.]



Edited By diabolicaldon on 1106186864
 
[hmmm....wonder if it will save a trip to the dentist for whitening or bleaching? :p
I suspect the erosion is possible due to the lower ph of the water as compared to tap, but I'm not sure when the Ph changes the most. I've heard RO is acidic enough to cause problems with copper plumbing lines (for drinking...not fish production.. :uhoh: ) eventually. Might be interesting tests to run to see if the Ph changes from the RO and after the DI too...
Anyone have any facts in this regards?]
 
[True. Pure water, DI water, is corrosive. When used longtermed, it'll even corrode stainless steel. Since DI water has no/little contaminates, the hydrogen and oxygen components of the water also exist as free ions, H+ and OH-, in addition to the H2O molecules in the liquid. This is also one reason why ph readings can be somewhat unstable.]
 
@HSLee wrote:
[True. Pure water said:
[What am I missing here. Ideally, DI water should have a ph of 7, should it not? Why would this be more corrosive than say a pH of 6 where the concentration of H+ ions are 10x or a pH of 8 where the concentration of OH- is 10x higher? I though that pure DI water is so unstable because there are so few of the ions that any small reaction would cause a large change in the pH (its buffering capacity, I guess).
I apologize for throwing off the thread; maybe howard and i can discuss through pm's.]
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