Is it safe to drink RO water?

[koranAngel]

only drink my ro water at home love it taste pure & clean
although flourides are removed which is kinda bad since it help with ur teeth etc
other than that all is good

 

[EdSnyder]

Drink it !!
Imagine the health risks of drinking the other stuff. How about the health risks of drinking Chlorine, Chloramine and Fluoride.

The amount of Floride in the water is benificial, right??? And the chlorine and chloramine get removed in the 2 carbon stages in a 5 stage unit, dont they?

 

[stealle]

The amount of Floride in the water is benificial, right???

Right, for your child (probably not for the reef tank). My pediatrician recommended we use tap water for our babies since our public water supply is known to be very good AND it is flouridated. When we traveled with our babies to locations with unknown water quality, we used the flouridated water you find in the baby isle in grocery stores. The RO water is not going to harm your children, but I wouldn't use it everyday throughout the first several years of life because of the benefits of flouridated water.

And the chlorine and chloramine get removed in the 2 carbon stages in a 5 stage unit, dont they?

All that stuff gets removed. I don't know what stage what gets removed. Maybe someone can chime in on that.

 

[Playa-1]

The amount of Floride in the water is benificial, right???
I think fluoride is beneficial to people that don't brush their teeth with tooth paste that is fortified with fluoride. If it's beneficial or not depends on who you ask. It's a very controversial subject.

And the chlorine and chloramine get removed in the 2 carbon stages in a 5 stage unit, dont they? Many RO/DI units with multiple carbon prefilters are capable of eliminating chlorine and chloramine. The only way to know for sure is to test the filtered water.

 

[Frogmanx82]

true


LMAO... Ummm there are many many things more corrosive than pure water. One example would be hydrochloric acid... that stuff that naturally occurs in every healthy persons stomach.

and a boiled egg is a totally unnatural state for an egg, but you won't get sick from eating one everyday.


That's just silly talk.

Laugh if you want, but ultrapure 18.3 megohm resistance water will suck the plasticizers out of plastic resins and eat through containers that can easily store HCl. Water badly wants dissolved solids and when you take them out it will try and replace them. Ultra pure water is very corrosive for this reason. Not like acid, but it gets very tricky to store ultra pure water in a container that won't leach something back into the water.

I'm not totally sure of the health effects of drinking pure water, but I know I've seen some warnings against it.

What is totally silly is saying Fiji water is no good just based on TDS levels.

 

[lordofthereef]

Drinking zero or low TDS water is hazardous to your health. Nothing is more corrosive than pure water. It is an entirely unnatural state for water to be in and pure water will suck the minerals out of your body like you were a salt water fish in a fresh water tank. A glass won't kill you, but you should not make a habit of drinking demineralized water. RO water is not quite demineralized so its not too bad, but RODI water would not be good over the long term.

This is a rumor that I have read elsewhere too and it is simply incorrect. Think of it this way... if the water is "sucking the minerals" out of your body, where is it sending them? If you TRULY believe this is true I urge you to take a nutrition course.

 

[Frogmanx82]

I did some googling and found this article.
http://www.sylvansource.com/Pure-Water-and-Health.pdf

It seems a very sensible discussion of the subject and I tend to agree. While it has been claimed drinking pure water is bad for you, this article says its just not so.

I should have checked my facts before posting. Sorry. At least I learned something.

Ultra pure water is corrosive but the home RODI unit is a long way from 18.3 megohm water which is as pure as you can get. If you ever have to store or move that stuff around, it is the devil.

 

[Snakebyt]

whatever you do, never drink foreward osmosis water, only reverse

 

[Playa-1]

The forward is the best part with all those tasty minerals that everybody raves about :lol:

 

[lordofthereef]

At least I learned something.

And that is what matters! No worries. I was in the same boat as you a few weeks ago in regards to ich. I am happy I was corrected as I now know better and I can help others (as well as myself) with my new found knowledge.

FWIW saltwater is also technically corrosive. Labeling something as corrosive doesn;t necessarily make it unsafe for consumptions. Likewise, things that are not very corrosive aren't necessarily edible.

 

[jungliztkruger]

i would Tee off your ro unit before the DI. that way a little is left in there

 

[Whisperer]

The solutes removed in making RO/DI is so miniscule compared to the amount of solutes one ingest in a day. The GI tract is lined with protective mucus making the passage of anything from the mouth down to the stomach purely mechanical, no significant chemical reaction takes place there, even with PURE water passing thru it. Once the PURE water hits the stomach, it is mixed with whatever is in there...way too much TDS in there for the PURE water to make any impact for the loss during the filtration process.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The concern with post RO water is bacterial growth. The disinfectant from your water supply is removed, so it can become contaminated.

 

[Whisperer]

I have problem with bacteria growing in a nutrient-deprived environment. They can go dormant, but not reproduce. There has to be substrate for growth and replication to occur. Even when bacteria go dormant in pure water (even that poses a problem of hypotonicity, that bacteria better have a capsule or a relly thick cell wall or risk bursting!), it will likely not survive a pH 1-2 in the stomach.

 

[hellbob]

You know I think it would depend somewhat on the quality/source of your tap water too. If the source of your tap water contains crap from runoff, agriculture, direct waste disposal etc., I would highly recommend using RO water and take supplemental nutrients to replace the stuff that RO removes. If the source of your water is something along the lines of artesian well water then I would say that drinking RO is somewhat unnecessary. I believe the EPA has yet to fully understand how to test for modern contaminants.

 

[EricJC]

Two words: Osmosis & Dialysis...food for thought?

That being said, test your tap water for harmful dissolved solids. After having our lab test mine, I added a whole house Carbon filter with R/O under the kitchen sink for Ice and Cooking.

 

[gildorph]

That's just silly talk.

Um, Did you read that World Health Organization Study which itself is based on scientific research including human data? What would be the incentive for the WHO to come out with this and make these findings if they were not accurate and the demineralized water did not pose some risk? It is not natural for water to make you pee significantly more, not quench thirst, and leach necessary minerals like sodium, magnesium and calcium from your body (note: this is separate from them not being in the water to begin with). Replacement of these items in foods was considered in some of the studies. Those facts appear somewhat established, I don't believe it is silly to reject them out of hand especially when many of are maybe considering the affect on our families.

 

[hellbob]

The WHO studies do not take contaminants into account. RO removes other substances besides minerals.

 

[Whisperer]

Maybe WHO is thinking about the third world countries where food is scarce making the minerals more essential . But RO/DI equipment is probably not the priority in these countries. I don't see how the absence of these minerals in our water has much impact as theirs.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have problem with bacteria growing in a nutrient-deprived environment. They can go dormant, but not reproduce. There has to be substrate for growth and replication to occur. Even when bacteria go dormant in pure water (even that poses a problem of hypotonicity, that bacteria better have a capsule or a relly thick cell wall or risk bursting!), it will likely not survive a pH 1-2 in the stomach.

You may have a problem with it in theory, but in reality, it can be a severe problem. That is why many RO systems for human use incorporate a UV to kill bacteria. They do not need to grow fast to be a concern.

From the FDA:

http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/Inspections/InspectionGuides/InspectionTechnicalGuides/ucm072913.htm

Researchers at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) conducted extensive investigations on the bacterial contamination of RO systems used in producing purified water for dialysis (15). They reported: 1. certain naturally occurring Gram- negative bacteria can multiply in relatively pure RO water; 2. thorough periodic disinfection of the entire RO system is essential in producing water with acceptable bacterial counts; 3. stagnant water in pipes down stream of the membrane is the major source of bacteria and endotoxin in the product water; and 4. the efficiency of a membrane in rejecting bacteria is better in continuous operation than in intermittent use.


and


Technical Requirements of a RO System

Several basic technical requirements of a RO system are:
Feed water should be adjusted to proper pH and be prefiltered. The amount of TDS and suspended materials in the feed water after prefiltration should be controlled within the designed limits.
Feed water and product water should be monitored for microbiological quality. The system should be disinfected when microbiological quality levels are exceeded.
All system components should be mechanically cleaned before disinfecting. Appropriate tests should be performed to assure that chemicals used in disinfection are completely removed from the system.
The use of filters or ion-exchangers down stream of RO modules should be avoided.
The RO system should be designed for continuous flow without traps, dead ends and pipe sections which may collect stagnant water.
The chemical and microbial quality of water should be tested at predetermined intervals during a production cycle. In-line conductivity probes should be installed at key points for continuous monitoring of water quality.
The equipment should be qualified and the RO system should be validated periodically, as well as operated and maintained according to manufacturer's instructions so that it can consistently produce water with acceptable quality.