RO/DI Water Safe to Drink?

gabew

gabew

New member
I am currently planning out how to set up my new RO/DI system for my tank. I already have a very basic RO system set up. It has no DI no fancy pressure grudges or TDS meters and the water is stored in a 4.6gal storage tank. It works but I wanted to upgrade it for my tank. I often drink the water from my current RO system because it is stored in a closed tank and no bacteria can develop. But for my new system I wanted to have the water stored in a larger open container such as a trash can or storage bin. I was thinking with the bigger storage tank I might use it instead of the Poland Spring water we currently use. We have a bubbler and they deliver the blue jug things but it would be a lot cheaper to use my RO/DI water instead. I wanted to just refill a single jug with my RO/DI water whenever it was empty. So my question is, is the RO/DI water safe to drink? It takes chlorine out of the water so bacteria can develop. I would probably add a bit of chlorine to the jug every time I refill it to kill all bacteria but there is still the days to weeks in which the water is in the open storage bin unchlorinated. Would it be better if the storage tank had some sort of lid. Not airtight bit just enough so airborne stuff could not fall in. Or am I just paranoid and would a bit of chlorine kill all the bacteria and the water would be fine?

Thanks for your advice
 
This is always met w/ a great debate.
Many will say you should not drink DI, and I agree(why else would suppliers give us a DI bypass valve if there isn't some truth to this?)
I drink my RO only, save the DI for fishies.
 
davocean said:
This is always met w/ a great debate.
Many will say you should not drink DI, and I agree(why else would suppliers give us a DI bypass valve if there isn't some truth to this?)
I drink my RO only, save the DI for fishies.
Click to expand...

+1

I have a valve before DI for drinking and one after DI for fishies/corals.
 
davocean said:
This is always met w/ a great debate.
Many will say you should not drink DI, and I agree(why else would suppliers give us a DI bypass valve if there isn't some truth to this?)
I drink my RO only, save the DI for fishies.
Click to expand...

Put your old RO unit under the kitchen sink, add a bladder tank and dedicated drinking water faucet and you're good to go with RO drinking water.
 
As above, catch it after the RO, but before DI. As to chlorinating it again, I would not worry for a second. The kind of bacteria and critters that you need to worry about are not going to get in it from the air (Crypto, E. coli., Giardia etc.) . They are passed through water contact with certain animals, waste, and other sources. As long as you aren't routinely bathing in the container, or letting mice poo in it, it will remain uncontaminated by anything but benign normal life. People never seem to mind swimming in lakes, rivers, and oceans, but stress out about drinking water all the time.
 
Great guys thanks. So I'll do two tanks. One before DI for drinking and one after DI for the tank.
 
RO water isn't very quenching to me. It makes great ice, but for drinking we have pretty good tap H2O here. Same goes for bottled, brands like Dasani, and Aquafina are "purified" from municipal sources... RO, and to me don't taste good.
 
Just wondering?. Starting a 28 gallon nano. I was planning on doing 5 gallon water changes every week.does that sound good? Also. I bought an rodi unit and thought about buying like 20 gallon can with a lid to store water so I have it ready for my water changes. I would buy a 6 gallon bucket to mix my saltwater. Would my water be okay for a month in the 20 gallon containet. I saw a company on line called baytech that sells FDA approved containers. Anyone ever heard of them. Sorry so may questions but want my fishes to be safe and healthy.thanks
 
A RubberMaid trash can is more than sufficient. There's absolutely no need to go with the high dollar food grade container. Rinse it well to begin with and you'll be fine.
 
I have a RO unit with a storage tank and faucet, I just got a separate DI unit which I would like to install after RO for fish only, what kind of device should I get so the DI water is only going to the reef with RO still goes to the storage tank. I would like to automate this so I don't have to manually turn off the value. Would a tee be suffice for this purpose.
 
NOT recommended. I've been on submarines for about 15 years and we use a fair amount of DI for chemistry etc in the nuke plant. One of our mechanic/chemists decided he would fill his water bottle and drink from it for about 6 hours at a time each day. Not continuous, but probably about 6 or 8 glasses each day. His intestinal track shut down and he ended up dehydrated and with diarrhea for a week.

I'll take the tap...
 
on another thread here, someone mentioned that the Ph of the DI water can destroy the enamel of your teeth. :eek:
 
I guess I haven't done my research, but I can't see any reason not to drink DI water. It's pure water, pH 7. It will become more acid in contact with co2 over time. I have drank in often. I guess I will do some more reading on it.
 
I think it's safe from what I've seen, the problem comes from the fact that you aren't getting any mineral or electrolyte replacement from it

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