chrowski
New member
Hey all,
This thread is just for educational purposes so no one falls into the same issue I did. So let me start my story from the begining.
I had an RODI unit putting out about 1:8 in favor of waste water. My filters were almost 3 years old but my TDS reading were perfect b/c my well-water pressure was so low (30-40psi). So, I invested in a booster pump and set my system to around 65-70psi). As it turns out the booster pump only marginally improved my waste water to good water ratio but it made production a whole lot faster, so I still think of it as a good investment.
However, upon hooking up a booster pump to a 3 year old filter system; it seems the new found pressure started pushing all of the algea brewing materials through my exhausted filters (which weren't exhausted @ 40psi but they were @ 70PSI)
My TDS after installation of the booster pump still read 3ppm which is reasonable and my nitrates were still zero.
Since then I've had brown algea problems, and I've tried every other fixer-upper from giant water changes to replacing all lightbulbs, to more flow. I looked at the timetable of the origin of this problem and made the connections with my booster pump so, I purchased new RODI prefilters and immediately the problem seems to have stopped spreading and now I must begin my battle, with the scale finally tipped in my favor against alot of brown algea, some hair algea, and some bubble algea. --none of which were present before the booster pump, or at least not present in noticable amounts-- and I also have to frag-off some pieces of coral limbs for disposal that the brown algea adhered to and killed the tips of the branches off.
Moral of the story to all reefers who don't want to endure this problem. Upon installation of Booster pumps, swap out prefilters! It's a small price to pay to not have to go through the stress I have of finding out the source of the problems, and then dealing with the problems. I hope this helps at least one person out there!!
Thanks for reading.
This thread is just for educational purposes so no one falls into the same issue I did. So let me start my story from the begining.
I had an RODI unit putting out about 1:8 in favor of waste water. My filters were almost 3 years old but my TDS reading were perfect b/c my well-water pressure was so low (30-40psi). So, I invested in a booster pump and set my system to around 65-70psi). As it turns out the booster pump only marginally improved my waste water to good water ratio but it made production a whole lot faster, so I still think of it as a good investment.
However, upon hooking up a booster pump to a 3 year old filter system; it seems the new found pressure started pushing all of the algea brewing materials through my exhausted filters (which weren't exhausted @ 40psi but they were @ 70PSI)
My TDS after installation of the booster pump still read 3ppm which is reasonable and my nitrates were still zero.
Since then I've had brown algea problems, and I've tried every other fixer-upper from giant water changes to replacing all lightbulbs, to more flow. I looked at the timetable of the origin of this problem and made the connections with my booster pump so, I purchased new RODI prefilters and immediately the problem seems to have stopped spreading and now I must begin my battle, with the scale finally tipped in my favor against alot of brown algea, some hair algea, and some bubble algea. --none of which were present before the booster pump, or at least not present in noticable amounts-- and I also have to frag-off some pieces of coral limbs for disposal that the brown algea adhered to and killed the tips of the branches off.
Moral of the story to all reefers who don't want to endure this problem. Upon installation of Booster pumps, swap out prefilters! It's a small price to pay to not have to go through the stress I have of finding out the source of the problems, and then dealing with the problems. I hope this helps at least one person out there!!
Thanks for reading.
