Will a RODI filter work with Well water and house filter?

S

shanet1975

Reefing newb
I was looking into purchasing a RODI filter system, but am unsure if it will work with my house water. I have a well and a 4k kinetico whole house water filtration system. My iron was really high among other things. The filter works OK, but my water still doesn't taste too good. It's clear though. Would a RODI filter work OK with this?
Thanks....
Reason I ask is I just bought a bunch of snails and hermit crabs and stuff from a gyu and all the snails died again. All tests are good with the exception of nitrates at 20. He said it's because I am using the Walmart RO drinking water. That was the 4th or 5th batch of snails that died....
 
Why wouldn't it work with your house water? Just hook the RODI unit up to the plumbing under the sink, and you should be good to go. Depending on your water pressure, you may have to purchase an extra pump.

Walmart's RO water would not have killed the snails... Plenty of people on here use Walmart RO water exclusively, and have beautiful reefs (like Yote). I suspect your problem is something else.
 
I was just unsure if the RODI unit would sufficiently 'filter' the water enough to use. I can't think what else it could be that is killing things. The arrow crab and little red shrimp died today as well. And the hermit crabs are slowly dying too. The fish are all OK. I need more test kits I suspect. All I've been testing is ammonia, ph, nitrites and nitrates. And salinity...
 
I'm just a newbie to reefing yet, but I would have to guess the presence of copper in either something in the tank, or somehow in the water... If all your inverts are dieing. Do you have anything else in the tank that is living? If thats all you have in the tank common sense would make me think that there is something toxic in the water, was the tank cleaned with any chemicals or anything? If you have anything else living in the tank i would guess copper from what I understand it only wipes out inverts...
 
Oh, i didnt read the last post throughly, your fish are ok? then most likely copper right Biff? I just wanted to try to help. I need to start repaying some of my thanks on this forum and contribute when I can!
 
I bought the system from someone already setup and that was one of the questions I asked the guy and he said he never treated anything with copper, but........I also never tested for it. I'll get a copper test kit and see. Any kind of test kit I should look into buying for this or will anyone do the trick? That does make sense though...I think....
 
Cory is right on. Copper would be my guess too. Do you have copper pipes in your house, from your water supply? Copper plumbing can leach into the water too. My friends (Jermpool and Mator) killed off everything in their tank once (accidentally) because they didn't know that they had copper pipes, and it turns out they were leaching copper into the water.

If the tank has EVER been treated with copper, it can still affect the inhabitants later down the road. Copper is believed to get absorbed even into the silicone between the glass. Where did you get your live rock and substrate from? If the live rock or sand came from a tank that had ever been treated with copper, that could be the culprit too, as the copper stays in there also.

An efficient RODI unit will reduce your TDS (total dissolved solids) by at least 98%. If you buy an RODI unit, be sure to buy a TDS meter also, so you can make sure it's working. They are cheap -- I got mine for $25 on Ebay.
 
I never use my own house water. Always from Walmart. Not sure about the guy I bought it from though. When I bout it all he had was 1 fish and liverock. If I do end up having any copper in the tank how would one treat that?
 
Well that's not too pleasant.....I really hope that's not the case...But if so, then fish only it will be....Now I am quite curious....
Thanks for the help on this.
 
One other thing.
If your setting up an RO/DI filter for your water,you probably dont want to drink it.
RO/DI water will strip the mucus right out of your throat and stomach.I would suggest maybe an RO/UV instead if your planning on using it for drinking water also.
I'm betting that somebody sold you a some rock and sand that had been in a copper treated tank.I use ONLY wal-mart water for my tank and its always tested 0 on a TDS meter.
 
Ahhhhh shit. .3 on a copper test. That's probably why the guy only had one fish and nothing else in the tank besides liverock. That really ticks me off.....So there really is no way of getting rid of it huh? The test kit came with some drops that says it will help. Is that a load of crap?
Also, should I take out all the dead snails and crabs or just leave them in there?
 
That's a load of crap. To my knowledge, there is no way to clean out your tank of copper once it's in there. That's why people say that you can't even re-use a tank once it's been treated with copper, it soaks into everything.

Either the guy flat out lied to you about never having used copper, or he bought his rock and sand from someone who did. But I can't believe that he wouldn't have told you that he was never able to keep inverts alive either. What a jerk.

Take out the dead bodies, or they might make your parameters spike, which could harm your fish.

The good news is, the copper isn't going to do anything to your fish. But now at least you know why you haven't been able to keep inverts.

Sorry for the bad news. Hopefully you can have a really nice fish only tank, and use something else for a reef if that's what you want...
 
Hey, but now you can have some of the cooler fish that reef tank people always want but can never have! Like triggers. Or a panther grouper! I've always wanted triggers and a panther grouper, but you can't have them with inverts. Look at the bright side... At least your 210 gallon tank didn't crack and flood... Sorry Freak :(.
 
You know that's true. My wife likes toadfish.....I guess we may have to convert to an aggressive style FOWLR tank. It's only 55 gallons though so we have to be careful. There is a grouper at our LF that is absolutely enormous.......
 
Yeah a lot of the aggressive fish get pretty big. But you can also look into non-aggressive non-reef safe fish like butterflies and angels. Everyone wants to keep them, but it's really hard to in a reef tank.
 

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