No RODI Even if it's Easy?

[crabbyreef]

I am transitioning my 90 gallon reef into to a discus aquarium. The room my aquarium is located in has an RODI line run up from the basement (Where I have a Spectrum 4 stage RODI Unit) to a mixing drum with a float valve thus making RODI so easy. With that said should I still not bother with it? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Cheers,

Mike

[Second Hand Pat]

Mike, go with your tap water unless there is something wrong with it. WCs will be do much easier. You can save your RODI for breeding later on if you decide to go there.

[crabbyreef]

Thanks Pat.

-Mike

[Jason F]

If he already has a system in place for delivering RODI to the tank, which it sounds like he does, then how exactly would it be easier to use tap water? I would say use the system you already have, just know that it's not a requirement.

[crabbyreef]

Jason-

Yes that is correct, RODI is already in place and tap would take some reworking. I assume this would be ok for any live plants I place in the aquarium? Nothing fancy, just common stuff mounted to driftwood and in the sump.

Cheers,

Mike

[Second Hand Pat]

Mike, sounds like your plan is to use RODI water for your discus on a drip system? Is this true? If so you would need to re-min the water for discus and ensure the discus were getting enough fresh water to keep them healthy.

[crabbyreef]

I would do wholesale water changes from a large water reserve located next to the aquarium. The drip part would only be used to account for evaporation.

Thanks,

Mike

[pcsb23]

If the gear is in place and you are happy to use RODI then go for it. You will have to re-mineralise the RO water though, I prefer to use commercial re-min salts as it is easiest. Pure RO is fine for topping off. Once the DI resin is spent I wouldn't worry over replacing it, the quality of RO water alone is generally more than fine for discus (wit a little re-min in of course).

[Jason F]

You could use the system that's in place already but just remove the RO membrane. This should eliminate the need for re-min but keep the benefit of using an existing system, plus the water would still be going through a sediment and/or carbon block. Just a thought.

[kris2341]

If the gear is in place and you are happy to use RODI then go for it. You will have to re-mineralise the RO water though, I prefer to use commercial re-min salts as it is easiest. Pure RO is fine for topping off. Once the DI resin is spent I wouldn't worry over replacing it, the quality of RO water alone is generally more than fine for discus (wit a little re-min in of course).

where does one get these commercial remineralization salts? I was considering getting an RO/DI unit until people said it isn't necessary for raising discus, but it is nice to have for all sorts of things and if i start breeding them in the future.

I clogged a few keurig machines with the tap... drinking water storage sounds nice.

[Jason F]

You can either get them on certain websites which you can search for on google or some products like Kent RO Right can be found on amazon. I started using the Kent RO Right but quickly realized at the rate I am doing water changes that was going to start getting expensive. So after reading a few threads on here and talking to a few people I removed the DI resins from my unit, since the RO membrane already does a good enough job already, and started re-mineralizing with the waste water. This makes the system much cheaper to run and the waste water has already gone through the sediment and carbon block filters so I'm not putting all the junk from the tap in my tanks which is what I was trying to avoid.

[kris2341]

I kinda wonder if there are any bad elements in the tap that one may want to keep out of their RO... thats probably one situation where using actual salts is better than waste water but that sounds like a minor issue.