Well water causing problems?

[IPT]

Long story short...I moved and over the past few months my SPS have been slowly declining. The only things in the tank doing well are a T Max clam, some yellow polyps, and a Frogspawn. Everything else (not inc fish) is slowly dying, including Green star polyps. Thru the process of elimnation my ast suspect is the well water and something going into the tank I can't or haven't tested for. (the other thread lead to this but the topic is buried within the thread so this is more clear cut).

I am wondering if anyone else has had issues like this? I know TDS are an issue, but how do you test for that? There is not enough water pressure for a RO unit. WHat solutions did you end up going with?

 

[Threelittlefish]

Buy an RO/DI unit with a pump. Some come with them. Well water is full of bad stuff

 

[sslak]

TDS meter tests for TDS.

As mentioned, some RO/DI units come with a pump of thier own.

 

[mnchartier]

We had a filter system installed on our well had TDS of 350+, and now I am getting 45 TDS coming out of it and then 0 TDS out of my RO/DI, if anything at all I would get the water tested to see what is in it and go from there.

 

[IPT]

Yeah, I am sure there is some sort of filter on it. Guess I need to call the old owner and get some idea of the system, and grab some water and bring it to the local Water store for some testing.

350! Wow, yeah, God only knows what I have been adding to that tank for the past 7 months.

I'm starting water changes tonight with city water (which up here is quite good actually!). I know I can get Distilled water for like .5o cents/gal from the local water store. Might start that until I decide what type of unit to buy.

Why do you guys prefer RO? I seem to remember Anthony Calfo saying there are ways that have much less waste water and are just as effective of not better for cleaning up water for a reeftank. If you could point me to any links or articals you're aware of that would be great.

 

[mnchartier]

Heres an article for you.

RO/DI

If you had a filter system installed for the house you would see it probably in the basement, mine consists of 2 ~4' cylinders and a plastic container (for softener), and a big blue filter. The install company does service on it once a year, I change the big blue filter 4 times a year.

 

[IPT]

hmmm, yeah, I have big blue canister about 4' tall. There is small plastic canister on the water line with the traditional cansiter type filter in it. I thought that tall blue tank was just for storage (and it might be). I'll need to contact the old owner.