the real deal with water?!

[chadman]

okay i have always heard soooo much about ro/di water....and myself i have always drove across town to fill up a few five gallon jugs to do water changes...but lately my gfriend and i have been looking all over for a ro/di unit and everywhere that i go other than fish stores only handles ro units...what is the real differenence? at one lfs they even went as far as to say that ro water is actually better than ro/di water for saltwater tanks because there are some positive elements which are left behind...so is the only major downfall to reverse osmosis without dionization that you waste far more water? is ro water going to cause algae problems?

 

[reefreak29]

Originally Posted by chadman
okay i have always heard soooo much about ro/di water....and myself i have always drove across town to fill up a few five gallon jugs to do water changes...but lately my gfriend and i have been looking all over for a ro/di unit and everywhere that i go other than fish stores only handles ro units...what is the real differenence? at one lfs they even went as far as to say that ro water is actually better than ro/di water for saltwater tanks because there are some positive elements which are left behind...so is the only major downfall to reverse osmosis without dionization that you waste far more water? is ro water going to cause algae problems?
actually i only use di and no ro

 

[chadman]

really?!?! so you don't use the three filters online the dionization part? now what does that do to water? is that a recommended method?

 

[reefreak29]

Originally Posted by chadman
really?!?! so you don't use the three filters online the dionization part? now what does that do to water? is that a recommended method?
well i cheat, i have 2 huge di filters at work in the lab about 5 ft tall that strips everything out of the water that has a charge

 

[chadman]

o nice...but for a personal at home unit would i be able to get away with simply have a di unit?

 

[reefreak29]

Originally Posted by chadman
o nice...but for a personal at home unit would i be able to get away with simply have a di unit?
no

 

[chadman]

so then back to the original question...haha...can i get away with an ro unit or should i invest in the ro/di unit?

 

[reefreak29]

Originally Posted by chadman
so then back to the original question...haha...can i get away with an ro unit or should i invest in the ro/di unit?
i would invest in the rodi

 

[chadman]

short and sweet answers...haha...is ro/di simply more pure water than ro? rodi has all the nasty algae causing stuff removed from it which may have made it through the ro unit?

 

[jerthunter]

It is mostly about how picky you are about your water. I believe a RO unit is enough but a RODI unit would generally be better.

 

[chadman]

was there any legitimacy behind what my lfs was saying in that ro/di water removes some good things from the water which ro will leave behind? i noticed they had all these water supplements which said to add to ro/di water

 

[jerthunter]

In my opinion for saltwater there is nothing that is removed by RO/DI that is needed and is not added by a normal salt mix. For freshwater it might be true that the DI unit would remove too much.

 

[earlybird]

Originally Posted by chadman
was there any legitimacy behind what my lfs was saying in that ro/di water removes some good things from the water which ro will leave behind? i noticed they had all these water supplements which said to add to ro/di water
It removes just about everything good and bad. The good stuff is replaced as trace elements in your salt when you do water changes. RO/DI is the way to go. See if your LFS has a TDS meter (total dissolved solids) and check for yourself. RO alone will still have some add the DI and it will have little to none.