Problem with silica buster DI

[roblox84]

I just bought a Spectrapure silica buster DI cartridge on black friday and I've been having some issues with it. The first thing i noticed was that the cartridge had a really bad fish smell that would stick to my hands after touching it, none of my other di over the past 5 years smelled like that. Is that normal? There was also a little moisture on the cartridge. I inserted the cartridge yesterday in place of my regular di cartridge right after my membrane and proceeded to make 30 gallons of water at 0.

Today I continued making water and noticed that the tds meter read 179, I took the line and put it in a five gallon bucket while watching the meter and noticed that the tds kept going down until it leveled of at 15. What was weird is that the water coming out of the ro only was 4 and after the silica buster it was 15. So I put in my old di and it read 0 again. Did this silica buster cartridge go bad after one day? I also noticed that when i got it the di resin was very dark and now there is exactly a quarter of the cartridge where the di resin already turned a gold color.

Now I don't know how much water I made with this high tds and I definitely can't throw it out and waste it all, I'm just really hoping it doesn't kill my fish. Can anyone tell me what the problem might be here?

 

[roblox84]

Ok I ran the cartridge for 15-20 min. and the tds is stable at 0. Does anyone know if this cartridge has to purge itself between uses and if its normal for the tds to get so high between uses? And is anyone familiar with the quick color change of this resin?

 

[Dolmo5000]

Spectrapure recommends that you throw out the first few gallons when you start making water and its been several days between use. I also use the silica buster and think I remember the bad smell. As long as the tds reads zero I think you are good.

 

[roblox84]

Spectrapure recommends that you throw out the first few gallons when you start making water and its been several days between use. I also use the silica buster and think I remember the bad smell. As long as the tds reads zero I think you are good.

Ok good. Glad to know I didn't just spend 20 bucks for nothing.

 

[twistedfinn967]

Not to be rude, why didn't you check with Spectrapure instead of getting possible bad advice on the internet?

 

[Dolmo5000]

There are surely a few better ways to convey that opinion twisted. Lets be constructive.

 

[AZDesertRat]

DI resins are shipped in a solution to keep them fresh. Usually it only takes a couple bed volumes or maybe 1/2 to 1 gallon to rinse up. From the FAQ on the Spectrapure web page " The fish smell is normal, it has to do with Type 1 Strong based Anion resins which release very low levels of amines (trimethylamine). A very low threshold of 5 PPB or greater will cause a fishy odor to be noticeable. The odor is most noticeable when the resins are new and when they are at or near the point of exhaustion.NOTE: Trimethylamine is also released by decomposing fish which also results in the same type of odor."