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Thread: DI Units pros...cons...etc

  1. #1
    Administrator brewmaster15's Avatar
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    Exclamation DI Units pros...cons...etc

    Hi all,
    Was wondering who out there uses DI instead of RO water? Can you tell me about the system you use, the pros and CONs etc.. Everyone I know of uses RO water, including myself.. But I'm interested in DI as an alternative...

    Thanks,
    al
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  2. #2
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    Al,

    I use the 6 stage ro/di and make thousands of gallons before the TDS starts to get above 10... My good old Lake MI water comes in at 180+ TDS.

    the nice thing with the DI crystals/beads is you can see them start to change colors and you know about how much life you have. I change my prefilters about every 3 months or so and I let my unit run 24/7.

    I use the aqua safe system on ebay until RandalB gets going again and I can have him help me with a "big boy" system =)
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  3. #3
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    Al,
    Like Bill I have Lake Michigan water, although oddly mine is 150 ppm TDS. I also use an RO/DI unit (well, more correctly would be "I used to used an RO/DI unit", since I don't have any discus quite ready to spawn I haven't been using the RO/DI at all). I also like that the beads change color, many say that using the exchange resins is too expensive, but I find that in my case the expense is not all that great (you can find the resins on eBay for quite reasonable prices). My unit is also a 6 stage, but since I haven't been using it for at least 6 months I'll just throw it away and get a new one, also hopefully from Randal. My water comes out of the unit at 1 ppm TDS, but my meter is plus/minus 1 ppm TDS so I'm pretty sure it comes out as basically "distilled".
    All of the above is just to say that I prefer starting from zero, which the resins allow me to do.
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  4. #4
    Administrator brewmaster15's Avatar
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    Thats why I am interested in DI...I can't get my well water down past 40 us

    -al
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  5. #5
    Registered Member pcsb23's Avatar
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    Using a DI after the ro membrane is the best way imo, otherwise you will use the rein up far too quickly. Not surprisingly my water doesn't come from lake Michigan and if you add Larry and Bill's tds to gether its close to mine, ie liquid concrete. From the ro unit my water is in the region of 30 - 40us, depending on input temp, when I have used the DI resin after the ro its goes down to 2 to 4us.

    hth,
    Paul

    Comfortably numb.

  6. #6
    Administrator jeep's Avatar
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    When I used DI (as the final stage in my RO unit) the water produced was 0 TDS. The problem is that I could only produce about 200 gallons of water before the resin was exhausted, the TDS started to climb and the water smelled like rotten eggs. Way too expensive to replace for only 200 gallons of production.

    I think it was Randal who told me mainly that the main thing the DI was removing was the left over ammonia from the broken chloramine bond

  7. #7
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    You can contact company's around your city to setup a Deionization Exchange service (Culligan, US Filter, etc)...which is where they come out and install DI resin tanks and change them out every so often (depending on use and size of tanks). I was quoted from a local Culligan water dealer of $550 for a 2 tank anion/cation setup that would last me around 100,000+ gallons before needing an exchange. An exchange would cost me $550 each time, but it is a great alternative to an r/o unit....no waste water and no maintenance on the equipment since you are basically renting them. I figured it would cut costs in the long run with the saved water (no waste water), and no membranes or prefilters to buy. They can setup systems that will make your water good enough to be used for dialysis even for around the same price. You could even have it setup to have a conductivity controller so you can get any conductivity you want by automatically mixing DI and tap water.

    -Ryan

  8. #8
    Registered Member RandalB's Avatar
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    If you ever send me that Salsa and Homebrew Al, I'll be happy to send you a DI unit.

    A 10" Unit is good for about 7500 PPM depending on the resin. I get drinking water grade mixed bed non-colorchangin resin in 4 cubic foot lots about yearly and it's good for 45-50 Refills per cubic foot. Comes out to about $3.00 a refill. I only use it after my RO unit.

    Now, I use a 20" DI filter that is good for about 25000 PPM. It uses 4x or so refills and I haven't gone through one yet....

    RandalB

  9. #9
    Administrator brewmaster15's Avatar
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    if you ever send me that Salsa and Homebrew Al, I'll be happy to send you a DI unit.
    Deal Randal! I'll box the salsa installment tonight...I'll have to get creative on getting the homebrew there...

    Three questions Randal... Hot or medium on the salsa?. light or dark on beer? and whats that new AddY?

    -al
    AquaticSuppliers.com Freeze Dried BlackWorms and other foods your Discus will Love!!!


    >>>>>I am a science guy.. show me the science minus the BS

    Al Sabetta
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    Aquaticsuppliers.com


    I take Pics.. click here for my Flickr images

  10. #10
    Registered Member RandalB's Avatar
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    1) Hot on the Salsa (no wimps around here pal!)

    2) A little of both or your best recommendation. You can mail it to me; just wrap nice! LOL

    3) I'll trot off to A51 and update the contact list.. Thought I did already..

    RandalB

  11. #11
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    I'm using R/O only...no DI. But I too have been thinking about it lately. I'm thinking if you buy the anion and cation resins separately you could save a lot. I've heard you can recharge the anion resin with sodium hydroxide and the cation resin with muriatic acid. Seems like the way to go instead of buying the mixed bed resins and throwing them away when they're exhausted. If this is true it could be a big cost savings because you wouldn't have the waste water of RO and the expense if buying new resin all the time if you can truely keep recharging them. One of these days I'm going to bite the bullet and give it a try.

    Paul

  12. #12
    Registered Member Aiptasia's Avatar
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    Yes, the resins can be renewed. I have a kent marine Deion 200-R unit which is a three stage cati/ani unit that can push about 200 gallons per day with no wastewater. I had real problems with farm runoff phosphates in my area and the sandy soil around us contributes a lot of silicates as well, so I was having to use a R/O system with the more expensive "Hi-S" membranes to end the algae plagues in my reef tank water.

    The kent marine unit ran me about $200 bucks on sale at marinedepot.com last year, and it's been fantastic. The first chamber is a standard micron paper filter sleeve covering a carbon post filter, which removes most of the chunky stuff down to about one micron in size. Then the water is forced through the cation resin chamber, then the anion resin chamber.

    The product water is frighteningly pure. I have a hydroponic TDS meter (not a pen type, a lab quality meter) and the water tests out at a pH of true neutral (of course) with zero detectable total dissolved solids. It's so pure the pH can fluxuate wildly without some buffers in it, and it's so pure it isn't potable (safe to drink). You'll definitely need to add some R/O Right (or similar discus buffers) to use it with your fish.

    Up until now, i've used it for my mini reef tanks for evap water and water changes on the reef tanks as well as a 185 gallon African cichlid tank in my living room. I just couldn't afford three gallons of wastewater going down the drain on my big tanks when I did water changes.

    I can say that the kent unit functions very well. Now that i'm getting back into discus, i'm going to be converting my two car garage into a multi-rack fish room. I'm not sure if i'm going to use the kent marine unit in the fish room or go with a poly-bio-marine Kold Steril unit. The Kold Steril unit doesn't strip all of the buffers out of the product water like high end R/O or D/I units do, but it does handle the chemicals I need it to remove (phosphates, silicates, metals, etc.). Originally, the polymers it uses were developed for dialysis units and the technology has been adapted to aquaria. The thing I like best about the Kold Steril units is that they can filter as much water as you can push through them without needing that much contact time with the water, and can filter thousands of gallons per day if needed. It's funny, many large brewers in the beer brewing industry also use the exact same style of poly-filtration.

    One of our local commercial fish tank maintenance gurus here turned me on to the Kold Steril units. I'm going to have to go visit him and test out his product water to see just how pure it is.

  13. #13
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    approximately how many gallons before you have to recharge the resins? will they ever wear out after recharging too many times?

    as far as the kold-steril, i hear it's a good unit. i was looking for one last summer and they were nearly impossible to find. apparently the manufacturer moved and stopped producing them for a while.

  14. #14
    Registered Member Aiptasia's Avatar
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    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    Quote Originally Posted by pwsusi View Post
    approximately how many gallons before you have to recharge the resins? will they ever wear out after recharging too many times?

    as far as the kold-steril, i hear it's a good unit. i was looking for one last summer and they were nearly impossible to find. apparently the manufacturer moved and stopped producing them for a while.

    Yeah he did, but he's back in business. I think it depends on the amount of the dissolved substances in the water as to how often you'll have to recharge the resins. I've had to do it twice since i've owned the unit, and as far as I know, you can recharge them over and over. The resins don't appear to degrade. I've done it twice now on my unit. I could only give you a guess as to the gallons per recharge ratio, but if I have to guestimate, i'd say it's about 3,000-4,000 gallons with the junk in my local tap water.

    I do have a spare set of resin refills that I ordered along with the unit when I first purchased it, and the refills weren't expensive (less than $80 each). The kold stril units can filter about 5,000 gallons before the pads need to be changed according to the manufacturer.

  15. #15

    Default Re: DI Units pros...cons...etc

    Quote Originally Posted by brewmaster15 View Post
    Thats why I am interested in DI...I can't get my well water down past 40 us

    -al

    What is the tds of the water feeding your RO unit?

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