RODI + Hard city water yields bad news for me!!

[PhilipOSU]

So I burned through my last DI cartridge very quickly. I was rather suprised by this and spoke to one of my friends about this and he suggested that at this point the Di could be leaching TDS back into the RO water and to try just making RO water until I get my new DI. So I switched the outgoing TDS meter and line over to the RO and was shocked!!! The TDS was reading 300+. My city water comes in at a TDS of around 465. So I was at this point a bit perplexed. So I called Don at Air Water & Ice and talked through mt situation. He asked me to check with my local city water department to determine my incoming water hardness. I spoke with the guy in the water lab, and he told me that my hardness was give or take right around 21 grains. Do had told me that the RO membranes do fine up to about 8-10 grains and after that there is the strong potential for it to begin to get clogged up by the calcium and mag in the water and no longer function properly. So I am stuck with what I believe is only one option...a water softener. I am hoping someone else has an idea of another option for me. Basically I burnt through 1 RO membrane in 1 year which sucks!!

All ideas are welcome!!!

Thanks,
Phil

 

[MeVsTheWorld]

Not sure if it will work, but fro $20-$30 dollars it might be worth your wild. http://www.matchrockets.com/water/magwatertreat.html

 

[serpentman]

Phil I might actually be able to help you out. Our well water here is like tapioca pudding so we had to swap the original water softener we put in for an industrial strength one when we bought the house. I am betting it would be plenty for your application, and its pretty much a new unit. Let me know if you would be interested and we can figure something out.

 

[Burgman]

Hi,

How about a whole house filter loaded with a pleated filter in front of your RODI?

Dave

 

[serpentman]

Unfortunately, that would probably help with particulates but I don't think it would do much for dissolved solids.

 

[Burgman]

Hi,

At the big box stores they have some cartridges that might work for disolved solids. Another reason to make a trip to Home Depot or Lowes! LOL

Dave

 

[PhilipOSU]

Yeah, the guy at AWI told me there are a couple of options, but the only good one is the softener. I think Jeff has me taken care of though .

 

[puffster]

I have city water as well. It is terrible for my tanks. I Get my water fro the Clearwater didst. Here locally. Believe it or not it is cheaper for me to buy r.o. water than to get it out of my faucet. It cost .25 a gal. at the dist. and .35 a gallon from the city. I get 0 phosphates and all I have to do is add a little buffer and a few drops oftrace minerals when I mix up my salt. The down sid to this is that you have to carry all the bottles in(it is a good work out). I try to keep at least 50 gal. on hand for water changes and top-off.

 

[vivek]

the ro water from clearwater has typically a tds reading between 10-20 Not good if you are into SPS

 

[puffster]

Thanks did not know that. What do you do to correct it? Do not know that much about sps, am going to want some at some point. Have tried a couple of fraggs didn't do well. So until I educate myself on sps I'm not going to get any just to kill it, thats wasteful and expensive. Sps is soo cool. So what exaly what is tds? Thanks.

 

[Rhodophyta]

I also have a complete industrial strength water softener that is sitting here ready for someone to take home. Orin used to service and install these at hospitals before his current job.

 

[PhilipOSU]

Well I seem to had gotten it worked out. My brother and I ran up last week and bought Jeff's water softener off of him. I still need to replace my Ro membrane and DI filter, but I have been running some water down the drain and the water softener has definitely lowered my TDS.

 

[Futurecanadian]

I just found RODI water at Whole Foods in University Heights for $0.35 a gallon. You need to bring your own jugs though. I am so into this versus trying to figue out which unit to buy and such. As I have mentioned before I am reef-tarded and this was a quick fix for me.