Mo/Mike. More greetings from the UK. Keep on truckin' me ol' m8. I love to see folk proving the wannabe marine biologists cum chemists wrong. Even the properly qualified resident experts on RC go for each other's throats now and again (no names)
. That in itself proves (to me anyway) that there are no set definatives when attempting to replicate nature - even amongst experts.
I've had plenty of stick for running a heat exchanger as a coolant, because of the water waste. This coming from guys that waste as much (if not more) through their RO units, takes the cake! I also get plenty of stick for not having done a water change in over 2 years. I run a 1000 imp gallon setup. My system isn't over loaded with stock. For sure (at that size) it doesn't need to look like a supermarket fruit & veg display! I run a wet self clean skimmer which draws around 10-15% pa of the total water via skimmate and water loss is sorted via 3 RO units and mixed bed DI resin . My only other filtration is LR, a 5 inch dsb and an industrial mechanical filter. I'm certainly no chemist nor am I a biologist, but I can find nothing wrong (in layman's terms) with my water nor can I find any stress amongst the livestock. All I add is Salt, Ca (via the reactor) and Mg...and thats all I've done for 2 years.
Contributions like yours add another dimension to reef keeping, however I have one gripe. I agree RO's ARE a waste of water, but I have to ask how you can justify the cost of polyfilters and phosphate removing resins against the cost of prefilters and membranes unless you have a cheap supply? And...I wonder (bearing in mind why you took your route) what the ecological cost is, in the manufacture of polyfilters and resins?
I've responded to this topic because, whilst I appreciate people who have the nerve to experiment rather than be inflicted with herd mentality (and God only knows this hobby is rife with that), your reasoning confuses me.