Terrible Advice Tuesdays (T.A.Tues) The Ultimate RODI Unit Replacement?
Terrible advice Tuesdays: As long as you have a clean collection barrel, rain water is as good as RODI water.
The rest of the story…Rainwater can have any number of pollutants in it. Think about what might in the air in your city (industrial pollutants, car smog, etc) then add on what the rain water came in contact with as it was flowing to the collection barrel – bird droppings on the roof, metal gutters, etc,
Rain water is not as good as RODI water. If a fish store or someone told you to use rainwater in place of RODI water, run away…very fast
Browse the Store! Questions?
There is only one alternative to RODI water and that is distilled water. Wallmart has it for .88 a gallon. I just hate carrying 10 gallons of water into my house from the car when I need it.
Nick, I hope you’re joking because that is horrible advice. Distilled can be just as bad as rain water lol
Rainwater at the end of a hard long rainy day (at least several hours) is quite clean. And maybe even cleaner then tap water. But don’t use tap water.
I mean you see how fast algae grow esp in rain water. The amount of nitrates and phophates is quite high.
I’ve used it for fresh water tanks mostly because i needed water with a low pH (tap water here is about pH 8 ).
In short don’t use it for a saltwater tank. use it to clean the outside of your tank if you want to use it.
AJ: Distilled water should be as good or better than RO water. Why would you think it was bad. I work in a biochemistry lab and when we need the really good stuff we use the RO water that has been run through a still. It it better than the RO that goes through a very high quality water polisher.
Mark S…distilled water can be condensed on copper coils and copper kills invertebrates. In your case you may know what kind of coils the water was condensed on. For most everyone else who buys their distilled water at the grocery store, you’ll have no clue what kind of coils were used in the distilling process.
I. Couldan t agree more
Distilled water HAS COPPER!!!!I MAKE IT FOR PHARMACEUTICAL companies and weuse copper coiling. Do not use it in your reef.
Been drinking and using UV sterilized rainwater for years in my tank. I also have a UV filter on my sump– and no problems.
This is crazy. With the money that we reef enthusiasts or reef junkies spend on inhabitants for our aquariums… Why risk it? Those of us that have been in the hobby long enough have experienced an algae outbreak or two and know that it takes a lot of time, effort and sometimes money to clear up. Spend the $150-$200 on a good RODI unit or buy your water from a LFS. After all what is the most important element in your tank? H2O.
@chip – There are people who use rain water and tap water in tanks and have been just fine. But what you are doing is playing Russian roulette. The problem with both these sources is that you don’t control what happens on the other side. I have a friend who used tap water for 5 years and then the city added fluoride to the water and he didn’t know and it killed his livestock. You don’t have any control of what happens with that rain water. Acid rain, high pollution, anything can get into that water…. You’re doing the inhabitants a big disservice by not using an rodi unti.
I wish I would have heard this advise when I first tried to start my saltwater tank. It’s sad on how much bad advice there is out there.
Mark you have stirred one up this time. LOL
@AJ I live way out in the country and am on well water. RODI units don’t work well with well water as they invariably clog, and I can’t find any system which will easily force bottled rainwater through an RODI unit.
I’m interested, has anyone here ever even used rainwater? Or is it all some sort of ‘group think’ at work here? I have a buddy who operates a 10,000 gallon saltwater aquaculture ranch, growing corals and macros from well water alone.
I have a rain barrel for watering the garden, the Hanna TDS meter reads 15 ppm on rain water, certainly better than the 248 ppm out of my faucet, but not as good as 0 ppm coming out of my RO/DI unit. Numbers don’t lie.
@Chipp
You need to bulk up the pre filters going into your rodi. Many well systems have just one sediment filter and if it’s a large micron size, your rodi is doomed. I added another to my line so that, after going through a large micron to catch the big stuff, it could them go through a tiny one to trap the rest. You’ll also need a booster pump, most likely.A little extra money and you should be good to go. Mine also has a splitter before the di which runs to a holding tank under the sink so I can utilize it for drinking water. Another nice feature
@Chip, BRS has booster pumps that will pull your water up to the pressure you need and then run it through RO/DI.
I use well water with my RODI system here in Utah. I definitely go through the DI Resin a little faster than most people, but it’s worth it. All I was pointing out was that yes, you may be fine using well water, tap water or rain water right now, but the fact is, what your water quality is today, isn’t what your quality could be tomorrow and you have zero control over it unless you use a proper RODI.
Wow I have been using distilled water in my tank for over a year now and I have soft corals, and invertebrates and have not seen any issues whats so ever. I was having issue with cyno bacteria (red algae) and using distilled water has pretty much taken care of that issue.
I’ve been using distilled water for years in my reef tank, and after hearing that it could have copper in it I called Poland Springs straight away. I was assured they don’t use copper. Its always good to ask not all products are the same.
Wow! I can’t believe any one would risk there reef tank since rodi unit are so cheap and easy to use , how much money do you have in your tank and you want to risk all that not to speand 200 more to insure that you have clean and safe water. I feel bad for your tanks , good luck with the tank crash !
I have a WaterGeneral Mfg Co Model RD-102 RO Water System. Is that unit good enough? My LFS sold it to me but I’m not sure it is a good enough unit. I was having high Alkalinity problems and just went with maint co that delivers RODI water to me. I feel like I wasted my money.
Also I have to admit I ran out of the fresh RODI for top off last week and was torn as to what water to use so I chose distilled. I didnt have to use too much, just about a gal. I have a 110 gal and about a 40 gal sump. I dont know what kind of coils Ozarka uses.
I’m a 35 year sw hobbyist (can’t say I’ve been a reefer that whole time) and a molecular biologist by education. I’ve done some analysis of rainwater. While I wouldn’t recommend a rain barrel collection system for a tank, if you can collect during a hard rain, after it’s been raining for, say a half an hour, you will end up with water with a TDS of between 5 and 12ppm. BTW, one of our local hobbyists, and a biology teacher, has been using tap water in his extremely successful reef for about 4 years.
Is it not possible to pomp rainwater true a RODI unit. ?
Maybe stupid question.
Wim From The Netherlands.
I’m pretty sure the ocean uses rainwater and dirty runoff in all of its coral reefs. Hey if it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for my tank. 🙂 Actually, I use RODI because I think it’s the easiest way to get pure water. But I have seen people who try to go as natural as possible using things like rainwater or a turf scrubber instead of a skimmer. It sounds like a lot more work to me, but for the people who want to try keeping a more “natural” reef I guess it’s extra work that they enjoy.
Frog. How many gallon is the ocean ?? I think that little of pollution that In the rain and run offs is not going to change the chemistry of the ocean but in say a 200 gallon tank would really start messing up the tank fast
Stop being so cheap if your already a reef junkie you’ve pored $1000s into your tank already what’s another $400 or less for water. Take your TDS meter and check rain water. You’ll see
Daniel..nice to hear that Poland Springs would tell you what type of coils they use. Keep in mind if they ever change coil types, they have no obligation to tell their customers.
I have often wondered about using a steam distiller unit instead of RODI. I know a local guy who sells several models from a stove top to hard plumbed higher capacity units. You would eliminate the ongoing cost of the filters. All of his units are all stainless. I’m not sure how laborious the maintenance is to keep ahead of the lime scale though.
Oh, and BTW, if I’m not mistaken a distiller should pretty much assure that no chloramine makes it through. Which may not be the case with RODI. I use Prime on all of my RODI water just in case.
I use rainwater. . . . . to wash my car. Ro/di is the bees knees and distilled water killed all of my buddies snails, crabs, shrimp, and almost took his 2 year old rbta. Rainwater has a little bit of everything we breathe out, car smog, powerplants(since I’m right outside of Philly), etc. I mean maybe if you live in Alaska or whyoming but then youd have well water anyway, but its definitely not a good idea living here outside of Camden and Philly.
Ive used distilled in a pinch for emerg WC. But I also called the maker and was told no copper was used. Don’t think I’ve needed it for well over 2 years as my ro unit (no di) has served me well. However I am upgrading in the new year and a new ro/di is first on my list. Here’s another story. I know a well know LFS store owner in the city and a coupe years back he was using tap water. He said he hadn’t seen a change in alge whatsoever. His coral has always looked great, livestock needed some work. Part of my theory is that he does pretty good business and I don’t think the coral was ever in there long enough to suffer. His livestock has been totally revamped and I haven’t brought it up but I wouldn’t be surprised if his answer has changed from the last time we spoke about water.
Barbara,
I have a Water General RD106 because I wanted to have drinking water as well as DI. The Water General is fine. The issue are the filters. Make sure you regularly change them with quality replacement filters. I added an inline TDS meter and pressure gauge to keep an eye on the system. You need at least 50psi going into the RO membrane.
Lets throw a little acid rain into the aquarium and see what happens…
I’m sure distilled water is fine to use as long as it wasn’t condensed on copper coils like Mark said. However, RODI is the best and safest water, in my opinion.
This is a little off the vein of rainwater, but I will never, ever use tap water again in any tank. I had a 50g freshwater tank that, for several months, had done perfectly well on conditioned tap water. Then one day I did a water change as usual – yes, I remembered my usual dose of Prime – and by the time my tank was full again, everything was dying, just bam, bam, bam, one right after another. I barely saved any of them (lost my very favorite fish, too) and that’s only because I had a QT set up that I had not yet done a change on. It was horrible – frantically catching everyone I could find, not knowing why (at the time)…never again.
BRS. Sells a greaf RODI system for 199. If your city use chlormine then they sell one for chlormine too think its around 269 best on the market today , why Risk your tank I used tap water when I started out always had alea issue and my nitrats and amm we’re high will never do with out a RODI again , wish I could add a ptcture of my pre-filter after just two months of use it looks like a mud filter and just think if I used tap water with prime. All that crap going into my tank
I have a question following a situation that came up about a week ago for me. In an emergency what should I use? I try to keep at least 10gal on hand of RO/DI from my LFS (and I even talked them into using reef crystal vs instant ocean for the pre-mixed stuff) but I had to do a WC late and was out of water. I ended up just waiting till the earliest store opened and bought natural seawater, but what should I do when that isn’t available?
Double check with manufacturer on process of distilled water from my 24hr walmart?
How much do you spend on RODI water from your LSF per week/month , if it was me I would wait till the LSF opened up. It’s not worth the rik sometimes ,
If your doing a Saltwater set-up or a Reef tank spend the Money on a good ro/di unit and enjoy the Hobby at its best!
John–
It is generally cheap to buy a 55 gallon opaque barrel and keep RO/DI water at your home. (In Southern California they are $25-$35) Because the RO/DI water would be free of dissolved solids, no algae should grow provided you keep the barrel sealed and free or phosphates, nitrates, contaminants, etc. Keep enough salt on hand to mix into the 55 gal barrel and a power head for mixing and in an emergency you can have 55 gal in about 1-2 hours. Personally I have 2 barrels in my garage. 1 filled with RODI water and 1 that I mixed my own salt water with Red Sea Pro Salt.
Thanks Mark W
Going to be be totally honest-
I’ve always used tap water. It’s worked for me for a long time, and I’ve (knock on wood) never had an issue with health of a creature due to water quality. It’s not good advice from me, but if you’ve got good water, there’s a chance it works.
I use distilled in my 38 gal Fowler tank. I have for a year now. I put in 1-2 gal a week. answering my question about distilled water in a nano tank Mark talked about the copper coils. I did test my tank & a new bottle of water both tested at 0. But I wonder to be on the safe side if I added a water conditioner to my distilled water? ? I like the low algae and a I have no trusted source of ro di water. My crabs, snails, shrimps have all been fine even out grown tank. But I want to make sure it stays that way . Any opinions on this idea? Thanks
I have had mixed results with RO, Tapwater, RODI water.. never used Rainwater!
I have noticed using RO/RODI for top up decreases carbonates and alkalinity while tapwater keeps it more balanced.. but when used tapwater needs to be properly treated for chlorine, have to keep eye for heavy metals and all sort of bad things.. I dont advise using tapwater for water changes or large volume use.. but top up is fine as long as you do maintain a water change regime!
I am not a fan of water changes therefore I stick to RODI nowadays with added alkalinity but I have used tap water for top ups before and served me okay for a long time(I may be very lucky not to introduce copper or any heavy metals) and may be due to little addition over time didnt affect anything seriously!
Rain water is a total lottery as far as I’m concerned, I used to collect it when my RO unit was out beyond its maximum use of water capacity and I had mixed results. I always tested with a high end TDS meter & sometimes it was good low reading water down to 2-3 ppm other times it was near 20-25 ppm. I worked out it was all to do with the direction in which the rain had travelled or was formed from. when it was from the ocean it was best, when it was from the south it came over Sydney Aust. it was highly polluted. If you have not guessed I’m down under mate, on the coast north of Sydney by 150 miles or so. Well I don’t use rain water now but this discussion reminded me of my experiences with rain.
There is a bottled rainwater company in the far north of the rainforest region of Queensland Australia who’s claim is the purest drinking rainwater on earth, they say that they only collect water in the monsoon season mostly or when its is from the sea or from the west. In all these cases the water they’ve collected travelled over sea or uninhabited land.
Another point is a study done by James Cook University which is the best place to study the Great Barrier Reef, there study was about rainwater run off being brown with mud or nutrients run off from the local cane farms. The results were clear & showed that muddy water was fine on young corals as long as there were no nutrients, fertilisers or pesticides that were being dislodged from the land where cane was grown. This was a big fight with the farmers in the early 2000’s and they were forced to put in catchment areas to stop farm chemical’s getting out to sea.
My point here is that well water that is not clear won’t harm corals as long as there is no other pollution. Well water is not familiar to me, just though I’d mention this study. We now are fighting to stop local governments near the GBR from allowing coal mining to go ahead as all the sediments that were safely settled on the bottom of the rivers for 80 -100 years are going to be stirred up & let to run out with tides over the biggest barrier( most probably destroying acres of coral) system on earth all because of mining money. It is a travesty of justice. These politicians want tourism and mining to co-exist. Not possible
Does anyone ever test their RO/DI water? I use RO/DI but accept that it is a feel good thing more that a reality. Most units are of temporary value, at best. That is, they work for a brief while and then become an unknown in terms of standard pure water readings. For fun,send you water to a lab to get a base line reading for your typical tap water. Then send a sample from a new RO/DI unit. THEN send a sample after using the unit for a few months or several hundred gallons of production.
I agree that some leaching can occur when water is in contact with copper. But only if pH is below 7.0 and/or you use well water loaded with carbon dioxide.
In the end, RO/DI water is what we are ‘stuck’ with for a stab at pure water. Old timers will remember that we used to fill mixing vats a few days before water changes and filter and heat that water. The filters used were of a high quality carbon and metal loving resins. Many ways to skin the cat but the best blend in my humble opinion is the ‘old with the new’.
My water is tested seasonally for changes in content. The RO/DI units are DOUBLE flow and the rejection water enters a second RO/DI unit. The water is collected in two 120 gallon storage tanks and circulated for 72 hours in carbon/resin filter systems mounted on the side of the storage tanks. Once set up, I can do a quick water change in a 120,180 and 400 gallon tank in 45 minutes. Guess what I do every saturday morning! 🙂
JasPR
Reading all this is making me nervous about my tank I just started it but I used only tap water I’m think I need to get a rodi unit ASAP !!!
kovdad, I feel your pain! but don’t be too discouraged. much of what is written is from a ‘perfectionist’ point of view. Its true, that ignoring experienced advise can result in frustration and disillusionment in the hobby in general. BUT that does not mean that you can’t keep marine fish unless you are an extremist hard charger. For instance, a VERY cool system can be built using tap water, a simple salt mix and even an under gravel or ehiem filter. This tank could be housed with damsels, clowns, royal gramma and hermit crabs. No special light required other than a few T-5 bulbs.
This assumes of course that your source water is reasonable good and ‘normal’. when in doubt, hold the water in a rubbermaid plastic trash bin and aerate it for 24 hours. test you SG ( you add the salt after filling the can). Test the water for copper, pH and temperature. Or add a pump and return the water to a suspended water purifier unit ( carbon or resin filled) back into the can.
marine keeping should not be made so hard and so expensive that it becomes an elitist or cookoo clock hobby only.
It’s not perfectionist. In this case, it’s safety. Changes in city water can happen very suddenly and without warning (my experience being a case in point.) Why risk losing your beloved, and often expensive, pets when an alternative is readily available – and truly not that difficult to use?
I purchased the Typhoon III from Air, Water and Ice (after muddling with a $60 unit off eeBay…not worth it.) It was actually priced pretty reasonably and it was easy to set up. They even put labels on the various outflows so you know where each one goes – and if you need help, I would bet there are plenty of how-tos on youtube.
I won’t even use tap water to thaw out their frozen food.
:). Points well taken! Water can change, no doubt- chlorine, chloramines, aluminum , copper- the threats abound. But on the practical side storage,aeration and carbon along with exposure time removes 99 percent of risk to hardy species. Honestly I’ve used tap water for the first 30 years on the koi hobby. If you do the math and change 10 percent a week of aged, per filtered source water in a hardy species tank filtered with activated carbon and a protein skimmer it is possible to be a successful keeper.