Kold Sterile vs RO/RO DI

[1boatnut]

Thinking about buying a water treatment for home and am looking for some imput.
I currently buy water from 2 different LFS. 1 uses kold sterile and the other uses ro/di
My understanding is kold sterile basically strips the water of everything,but there is basically no waste.
Also I've been told that kold sterile runs almost as fast as your faucet,where ro units may take more time to make water.
Would also prefer not to have a storage for water. Make 5-10 gals of water,mix, and do my water changes.
RO/DI still leaves some of the good minerals in the water(???) but I have heard some units can waste 4 gallons of water to make one.
A customer at the lfs the other day also claimed SPS corals don't do as well in kold sterile. I do not run SPS though,and my softies and lps have all seemingly done well using both types of water.
OK,need some opinions and imput.
Would really love to hear from anyone the pros and cons,their likes and dislikes ,and anything else relevent to aid in this purchase.

 

[reefkprz]

I have looked at those in passing and am not sure about them. I dont know how they differentiate between the minerals we want and the ones we dont. according to the kold sterile literature it strips harmfull things out but leaves all the hardness minerals behind..... I would say a unit like that may be ideal for freshwater, but I dont know if it also removes copper and other minerals.
basicly what I am saying is a definite I dont know. I've looked at them but wasnt sold.

 

[aquaknight]

Breifly spent some time researching myself.
From what I understand, Kold-Ster-il is bascially just a submicron, 0.20µm IIRC, sediment filter, with carbon/poly filters. It should remove most of the organics, and perhaps even some larger compounds. But has some definite drawbacks, such as if you have heavy phosphates in your tap, the Kold-Ster-Il will be to be attached to an addition DI filter. I doubt it would have the slightest affect on stronger bonded minerals such as silicates or copper as reefkprz mentions.
But there's no comparison to a proper 5-stage RO/DI, which is over 99.6% effective. Most Cold Sterilization are originally sold under "freshwater polishers" which is fine, as that's what they do, clean the water a bit.

 

[posiden]

I read your thread on another site.

I followed and read the link Randy provided for you. I gotta say.......I would not buy the unit. It seems there are just too many variables to make it work right. If you have nice water to begin with, this will polish it like already mentioned.......but what happens when the city changes something. Or the water you have is high in calcium and then you mix up some water for your tank, now you have a snow storm caused by high levels and you new water is now percipitating.

 

[1boatnut]

Thanks all !

 

[billgray22]

RO wastes 90%+ of the water, but with a big enough unit, you can make 60+ gallons/day. RO is the only way to go, with DI.
And it pays for itself in a few months.