[GoinSalt]

I finally ordered a RO/DI unit, but I've been doing some research tonite on WWM and they say that just having an RO unit is fine.

What's the consensus here?

I just happened to "luck out" today. When my hose spigot busted off at the main water pipe into the house, I had to call the water dept. I found my old bill for the phone number and it happened to have a breakdown of my local water. It says TDS avg. is 270. I've been fighting algae blooms (mostly brown and cyno) since I added four 140w VHOs. I'm hoping the water purifier unit will help in that battle. I've been using just tap water for all my water changes and topoff.

Also, I've read that the waste water from these units is extreme. What can I expect? 1 gal pure to 10 gal waste? 1 to 4?

Does using just an RO unit have more waste water than an RO/DI?

Thanks for the info
Nate

[Reefland]

Commonly sold Tap Water purifiers are nothing more than DI units and they do a great job at providing purified water. The problem is that the DI cartridge becomes exhasuted fairly quickly. Running RO before the DI extends the life of the DI cartridge and also provides an additional level of purification.

So yes, RO can be ran without DI and vice-versa, running them both inline gives multi layered filtering and extends the cartridges life.

[GoinSalt]

But is one better than the other? In reading on WWM, the "guys" say just using RO is fine. Is the DI portion overkill then?

What about the amount of waste water? Do you think RO/DI water would help with the brown/cyno algae that has innundated my tank? I don't believe I overfeed -- I give mysis in the morning and a spirulina flake in the evening. It seems the fish are always looking for more! I'm not sure what my phosphorous readings are. I guess I need to test for that as well. I'm sure that's contributing to the algae as well.

I do 15% water changes weekly and add about a gallon a day in topoff water. All of which comes from the tap.

Nate

Nate

[Samper]

If this tank is new it's natual for it to go through the various algae cycles even with 0 tds readings from your RO/DI but the tap water isn't gonna help the situation along any.

[GoinSalt]

The tank is over a year old. I guess more correctly, it's two 6-month periods. I started in April 04, crashed in Dec. restarted in Jan.

Even when I first started, I didn't have the algae bloom I have now. I was running two 65-watt pcs with bulbs that were at least a year old. I upgraded to 4 140-watt vho in April and the algae exploded.

[WHOSYOURDADDY]

Originally Posted by GoinSalt

But is one better than the other? In reading on WWM, the "guys" say just using RO is fine. Is the DI portion overkill then?

I do 15% water changes weekly and add about a gallon a day in topoff water. All of which comes from the tap.

Nate

Nate

Nate are you saying that you do your Daily Topoff with tap water? If so your defeating the purpose of using RO/DI. Or did I just misunderstand what you wrote

When it comes to the purity of the water there can be no "Overkill" the purier the better. I run a 5 stage RO/DI system and would have no other way.

ABSOLUTELY NO TAP WATER MAKES IT INTO MY AQUARIUM - all water whether its through partial weekly water changes or Daily Topoffs has been RO/DI'd first.

[WHOSYOURDADDY]

Originally Posted by GoinSalt

The tank is over a year old. I guess more correctly, it's two 6-month periods. I started in April 04, crashed in Dec. restarted in Jan.

Even when I first started, I didn't have the algae bloom I have now. I was running two 65-watt pcs with bulbs that were at least a year old. I upgraded to 4 140-watt vho in April and the algae exploded.

How long are you running your lights? The more light, intensity and duration of the light along with dissolved organics will cause algae blooms. If in your post your doing Daily Topoffs with tap water the odds are good that you have phosphates in your water. While this will add to algae buts its not the soul cause. Their primary source is nitrates

Are you using a Protien Skimmer? If not, consider getting one. They will remove the dissolved organics from your water and help reduce the conditions available for algae blooms.

I have posted in another thread a good source on algae here is a link that will be helpful http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/algaemarineplantcare/

[GoinSalt]

No, all my water changes and topoff water is tap water. I have an RO/DI unit on order from Premium Aquatics. I was just wondering if RO/DI is overkill if an RO unit will work just as well.

I guess the DI portion makes it that much purer?

Nate

[GoinSalt]

I have a Remora Pro skimmer. Everyone else talks about pulling a cup of skimmate. I empty mine roughly once a week. I don't know if needs adjusting or if I need to lower the cup.

Also, I have my 10k lights on about nine hours. Too long? Actinics go about 10. Should I just cut down on the photoperiod all togther, 10k and actinics off?

As for phosphourous, I just looked at my water bill and it had a breakdown of all the stuff present in the water. I didn't see any phosphorous listed. I guess it doesn't necessarily mean it's not there?

I was reading on RC about Oceanic salt and that it might contribute to algae blooms. I'm thinking of maybe doing a test with a different salt when I do my 15 gal water change on 100 gal tank, just to see what happens. Good idea? Yes/No?

My nitrates have been around 15-20 for the last couple of months.

Nate

[Samper]

I run my lights from 9am-9pm, fuge light 24/7. I have no visible "nuisance" algaes except for a small amount of cyano in the fuge.

Some people have had problems switching from certain brands of salt to another such as mass bleaching, algae blooms etc. I haven't researched it enough to say if it's a bad idea or not.

[WHOSYOURDADDY]

Originally Posted by GoinSalt

I have a Remora Pro skimmer. Everyone else talks about pulling a cup of skimmate. I empty mine roughly once a week. I don't know if needs adjusting or if I need to lower the cup.

Also, I have my 10k lights on about nine hours. Too long? Actinics go about 10. Should I just cut down on the photoperiod all togther, 10k and actinics off?

As for phosphourous, I just looked at my water bill and it had a breakdown of all the stuff present in the water. I didn't see any phosphorous listed. I guess it doesn't necessarily mean it's not there?

I was reading on RC about Oceanic salt and that it might contribute to algae blooms. I'm thinking of maybe doing a test with a different salt when I do my 15 gal water change on 100 gal tank, just to see what happens. Good idea? Yes/No?

My nitrates have been around 15-20 for the last couple of months.

Nate

You should be pulling enough to empty at least once a week. It really depends on how much dissolved organic material is in your water and how much ariation in your chamber.

What you should see is that the foam should be able to climb and disperse into the collection cup. It should be a dry foam. If you have alot of water accumlating building up then you should reduce the amount of bubbles in your chamber

Here is a link to a discussion on whether it is advantagous to have wet foam vs dry foam.
http://www.reefs.org/library/article/wet_dry_foam.html

What you should have is a very dark colored build-up that stinks.

On your lights this is basicly user preference I have my 03 come on at 1PM and turn off at 11PM. So they are on a total of 10hrs I do need to reduce them by 1 hour to get them on for 9 hrs. My 10K come on at 2PM and turn off at 9PM. They are on for 7 hrs.

Rule of thumb light should be on somewhere between 8-9 hours. I run my 03 a little longer to promote algae growth for my tang to eat. Typically you want to simulate a natural light cycle that a reef would see.

Lighting and from listening to R/C could cause blooms. Nitrates are the food source for them so theory if the salt mixture is bad and promotes nitrates then it can have an impact. I jut order replacements to my bulbs because they have lost their (intensity) i noticed this with the change of the type of algea I was growing.

A good set of cleaning crew will help keep it down but when you run lights for extended periods of time 8-9 hours a day your going to get algae.

[GoinSalt]

"Rule of thumb light should be on somewhere between 8-9 hours. I run my 03 a little longer to promote algae growth for my tang to eat. Typically you want to simulate a natural light cycle that a reef would see."

Are you saying that actinics promote algae growth moreso than the full-spectrum lights?

I do notice my yellow tang (and my coral beauty to a certain extent) peck at the brown algae on the rock.

Nate

[WHOSYOURDADDY]

Originally Posted by GoinSalt

"Rule of thumb light should be on somewhere between 8-9 hours. I run my 03 a little longer to promote algae growth for my tang to eat. Typically you want to simulate a natural light cycle that a reef would see."

Are you saying that actinics promote algae growth moreso than the full-spectrum lights?

I do notice my yellow tang (and my coral beauty to a certain extent) peck at the brown algae on the rock.

Nate

Color Temperature
You will see bulbs listed as Actinic, 420nm Actinic, 10,000K, 6,700K, SmartPaq , 50/50--and in a variety of other ways. On our Choosing the Right Aquarium Lighting we have a lengthy explanation of color temperature (in the Spectrum section), but generally speaking you just need to know the following. Reef tanks require half the lighting to be actinic lighting and half the lighting to be full spectrum daylight lighting. For the actinics any bulb listed as an actinic--whether it is a True Actinic, 7,100K Actinic, Actinic or 420nm Actinic--will be adequate. For the daylight bulb the best bulb for corals is the 10K (aka 10,000K) bulb. 6,700K and 8,800K bulbs are also fine. In many situations, because you will only have one row of bulbs, you will to get a 50/50 bulb in order to be able to spread the actinic and full spectrum daylight lighting evenly. The 50/50 bulb has one half of a single power compact bulb actinic and the other side full spectrum daylight. The Current USA 50/50 bulb is called the SmartPaq and the Custom SeaLife 50/50 bulb is called the SmartLamp.

Spectrum
The natural habitats of many common reef aquarium organisms have a bluer light spectrum." (Deeper water is bluer because as one travels deeper into water the longer light waves, toward the red end of the spectrum, are filtered out.) Included in this category are stony and soft corals, live rock and anemones.

Actinic blue light bulbs came into the reef hobby back in the 1980’s when most commercially available bulbs lacked the blue light spectrum. It was/is used as a supplemental bulb and not as a primary source of light. So why all this talk about lighting? Most corals (both soft and stony) need the light for the symbiotic algae that lives inside the tissue called Zooxanthellae. This algae provides food for the corals, and in may cases it is the sole food source. Many types of zooxanthellae have evolved to use the blue light (Actinic) to grow and reproduce, therefore it is an important light spectrum for your reef aquarium.

Actinic light is in the blue spectrum and is designed to promote the growth of good algae as well as what many corals and inverts require to be happy and healthy.

Algae is the staple of your Tangs diet. It will do a great job at keeping your algae down. Running strictly, Daylight bulbs will give your algae but it will give more of the slime type of algae (brown red).

[gqsmoothster]

As you might know, the DI step is usually the sixth step in the RO/DI process. It is just one more layer of purification in an already sufficiently good purification process. The RO units (if it's a 5 stage) should be enough purification. They have a rejection rate for most impurities in the 98-99.9% range. There are a few impurities that get by in the 1-2% range, and thus the DI does one last step to try to grab these impurities.

As for the waste ratio, a new system usually gives a waste ratio of 1:1. This gets worse as the RO membrane gets older.

Hope this helps.

[SurfStone]

In order for algae to live it needs nutrients. even with a lot of light in the red spectrum it still needs things such as nitrate, phosphate, silicate(Diatoms use this) iron, and a few other elements. With out these it has nothing to use to photosynthise with. low levels of these are fine except for silicates nothing uses that but diatoms ( Brown algae looks like dust). The others are used by macro algae, halimeda and mangroves (good algae and plants). RO/DI water helps remove all of those minerals and others so in the end you end up with pure H2O. RO the most important filtration you can look at the DI part as optional but it catches was the RO unit did not. Sort of like a one two punch. Your tap water is difinately causing your algae problems even when you use water conditioner because water conditioner does not remove algae fuel. Usually they only remove clorine and cloramine and detoxify heavy metals i.e. copper. Also if you are having mostly brown and cyano you one have silicates in your water in that case use a silicate remove and cyano is caused by excess nutrients that convert in phosphate and nitrate. they normally are also present foods that weed feed our fish. this is why not feeding to much is very important I personally only feed once a day or een skip a day this does not hurt the fish and insures that they eat all of the food I feed them the one time a day. I use frozen cubes and I cut the cube into fourths. I feed one of the fourths a day and this is sufficient for a 65 gal tank with 6 fish and a shrimp. Just make sure you only feed what your fish eat with in 2 minutes if there is any food left over any at all then your are overfeeding and this food will decompose and turn into algae furtalizer. make sure you rinse your prefilters every day also food trapped in the prefilter decomposed really quick especially falke and this will cause tsds to spike also. a good practice to follow when feeding fish is to put a tiny tiny bit in and let the fish eat that then put a little bit more in and let them eat that. then repeat until the fish do not have any interest in the food. this way you have a good idea of how much to feed them. simply putting in all the food at once cause some to sink to the bottom and get trapped or the stuff that floats some of that will get caught by the prefilter so tiny tiny portions allow the fish to eat all of the food you put in with out there being leftovers. Also have a good protein skimmer this IMO is probably the most important type of filtration you can have because it removes tds from the water make sure yours is a little bit over rated for your tank extra skimming and extra oxygen will only benefit you tank in the long run. Good luck with the ro unit

[GoinSalt]

I just got the unit Wednesday and filled a 5-gal bucket with the pure water. I've been using it as topoff until I do a water change this weekend.

Either the water has already made a difference or the tank is finally adjusting to the new lighting (I changed from 120w PC to 440 VHO in April) but it seems the brown and cyno algaes have slowed down.

Nate

[Unresistible Blue]

Originally Posted by gqsmoothster

As you might know, the DI step is usually the sixth step in the RO/DI process. They have a rejection rate for most impurities in the 98-99.9% range.

As for the waste ratio, a new system usually gives a waste ratio of 1:1. This gets worse as the RO membrane gets older.

Hmm. Just to clarify a bit: 25 to 75 gpd Filmtec membranes for instance, reject about 98% of the total dissolved solids in the supply water. 100 gpd membrane reject about 90%.

Your waster to permeate ratio whould be between 2:1 and 5:1, with a recommended ratio of 4:1 as a good compromise to extend the useful life of the membrane while not wasting too much water.

You'll end up replacing your membrane sooner than expected if you run a 1:1 ratio.

Blue