RO/DI mystery, bum system?

[ninja007]

Hey guys I got an ro/di setup a while back from bulkreefsupply. It said to flush it out for an hour so I let it run for about a day. I have the backflush valve so I did that also.

The ro cannister has still not quite filled up, it seems to run ok but is that normal? And now I've made about 400g of water and it never has a real difference between the incoming and outgoing water...about .03.

Now the water sometimes is discolored both in the new tank I've filled w/ sand and rock from my prior system-.but also in newly made Brutes where it should be crystal clear! The big tank has a film on top and a lot of particulates and has a sort of sawdust smell. At first I blamed it on some base rock I put in there but it does it even when it should be totally pure and regardless of whst salt brand I use. What is happening, I have no clue.
My parameters seem to check out (salinity temp pH nitrites nitrates ammonia). At one point it seemed much cleaner in the tank (which has been sitting empty for 3-4 weeks with just my live rock and sand which is doing fine. A week ago i put 3 damsels in here to test hings out and they seem fine. But the film on top is still there and irritates my skin if I get much on my arm. I went to put an angel in since the damsels seemed ok (and the particles on top hadn't gotten so noticable). The angel was in a bucket being acclimated by adding tank water a few cups at a time to its original water, i got worried and put him in the QT because he seemed to react badly to he tank water being put in w/ him. Any ideas? Just doing water changes is useless when I don't know the cause anyway.

 

[mcarroll]

It's not 100% clear to me....are you saying that the TDS of the water going into the BRS filter is the same as the TDS of the water coming out? If so, that's a definite indication that (at minimum) your filters need to be replaced. BTW, did you have a reason to flush for 24 hours vs the recommended hour? Definitely a waste of any of the filter modules you had loaded - prefilters, carbon and DI especially...RO has a lot more mileage, but it's unnecessary wear on it as well. In general, prefilters and carbon (maybe DI too) are good to process around 3000 gallons of water...less if your water happens to be worse than average in any way. Also, if your RO membrane is properly set up with a flow restrictor (done at factory, so usually OK) you should be sending about four gallons of water down the drain as waste (wearing on your prefilter, carbon and membrane) for every 1 gallon of makeup water (which wears on DI as well). At 400 gallons of makeup water, than means you should have processed about 5 x 400 = 2000 gallons of water through your prefilter, carbon and membrane. I would guess that the prefilter and carbon stages are ready for replacement....I would do so on principle at that level as once carbon is gone, your membrane starts to be damaged by chlorine...and it's all downhill (and on your DI stage) from there.

If by "the RO canister" (which is opaque) you actually mean the DI canister (which is often see-through and is the last filter module in the line) then it's not atypical for it not to fill up all the way. OK either way though.

Let me know if that's correct about your TDS numbers.

-Matt

P.S. If you think things are growing in your RO reservoir, I wouldn't hesitate to hand wash it with a 10% bleach solution and rinse really well with a garden hose. (as well as replacing some of those filter modules as noted!)

 

[ninja007]

I did mean the DI cannister doesn't fill all the way. It stays maybe 2/3 full. Just seems odd but this is my first one so for all I know, that's normal.

They system has a pressure gauge and TDS meter. The TDS was originally .04 in, .03 out. Now it's been the same in and out, usually .03 but occasionally .04. The system is a 75gpd unit and has 50g pressure very consistently when it's on. It has gone from sweltering hot end of summer to fairly cold fall here since I installed it, so that could factor in somewhere.

I flushed it for 24 hrs (maybe less actually) because after and hour it was nowhere near clean output, dusty would be a good description. I figured better safe than sorry and couldn't babysit the unit so I let the impure output go down the sink overnight and till I got home that afternoon. I have a bypass valve so backflushing it doesn't affect the DI membrane, or so I gathered from Bulk Reef Supply's instructions.

So to be clear, I backflushed it thoroughly (maybe excessively it seems) and also let it run through the whole system for a while. When it came out crystal clear and the output was lower than the input, I started using the unit. I filled a 240g (2x30g brutes at a time) and also maybe 2 extra Brutes for a Rubbermaid sump/QT temp. tank.

I understand that the media goes bad quicker than some people might expect but most people seem to use the stuff for many months

 

[ninja007]

...grrr Tapatalk. Anyway people use their membranes for many more gallons than I've used. The water is same city water I have used just fine in a fowlr tank for a decade, for what it's worth. I can't check the TDS out of the tap but it cannot possibly be especially bad judging from it's longterm performance, not so bad as to make the water noticably nastier than if I just used it straight like before.

The water is worse instead of better, can it really be possible that the system burns out after only a few hundred gallons of clean water? Pretty useless for somebody who will need to do 60g a month for changes. Every two or three months is nowhere near what people consider standard from anything I've ever seen so I didn't really consider that. Some kind of breaking in period maybe? Should I backflush it and try to clean it out some, or is all that media trash already?

Would it have failed that hard already that it could be actively putting nasty particles in my water? Just looking at it from the outside it would seem to be putting fiberglass-like filaments into the water. I didn't notice it in the salt mixing process keeping it so stirred up in a grey container. Or it just turned this way once in the tank for a time somehow.

I guess the bottom line is, could worn out or flawed-from-the-factory or damaged filters cause this effect? I suppose changing them out might rule it out but I would really hate to do that blind and end up still having the problem.

Nothing has gotten into the tank, it's acrylic with the tight lids on the cutouts and nothing in the room anyway. Tank was cleaned spotless and rock and sand is established and taken straight from the old tank with about 50g of the original tankwater with such little effect it didn't even cycle. Other than the RO/DI the only other unknown factor is about 20lb of dry base rock I put in. I went so far as to check the rest of that rock in the bucket in case something got in there after putting it in the buckets but before testing out that 20lbs. Nothin'. I hope this is more clear and is methodical enough that it's more useful. Thanks a ton for all the help, it's invaluable. It seems like no matter how long you do it, aquaria always has some new challenge that should have been simple. :/

 

[AZDesertRat]

I assume you are using a dual inline TDS meter? If so it should be installed so you are reading the RO only TDS and the RO/DI TDS, not the tap water TDS so your meter is probably reasonably correct. That is just one of the drawbacks to inline meters, they only measure two points and you need 3 points, tap, RO and RO/DI to troubleshoot a system.

It is normal for the DI canister to only partially fill, it is gravity only. What you don't see is the water travels up through the center of the cartridge so it does not have to fill on the outside between the canister sump and the refillable cartridge.

If you are still seeing TDS after the DI that is an indication your DI resin is exhausted. One quick way to double check is to swap the IN and OUT probes on your TDS meter and see if the readings are about the same or if they vary. Also make sure you have the probes inserted into the tees fully and rotated in the correct orientation for the most accurate readings.

 

[ninja007]

Yessir the inline TDS, it's the 5-stage w/ pressure gauge, TDS meter and flush/bypass valve.

I will do that trick with the switching lines and post results.

 

[ironworker]

you can get the air out by loosenig the canister and allowing it to escape . do this while the filter is running

 

[ninja007]

 

[ninja007]

 

[ninja007]

Ok with the probes swapped it reads 0 in, 3 out. It was assembled (presumably correctly) by BRS for the record.

 

[ninja007]

Switched them back, same thing- 3 and 3. >

 

[AZDesertRat]

Sounds like your DI resin is in need of replacement since both probes read 3 for the DI.
It would be best to get your hands on a handheld to confirm the accuracy of the inline as they can be significantly off if the air temperature and water temperature are not exactly the same, they are not truly temp compensated.
You also cannot just stick the probe in a glass of water as they require movement or flow past the probe in the tee to read correctly. I have two of them and never even turn them on anymore, I rely on my handheld.


It does not matter if you have air in the DI or not, it works the same either way. As someone said you can get the air out but the first time you lower the treated water line below the canister it comes right back, no big deal and perfectly normal.

 

[ninja007]

I tracked down a replacement kit for the media/filters, not as $$ as I'd remembered so that's nice

What throws me is the readings weren't really different at any point and have never read as 0. I guess the probes could just be absolutely useless...shame cause this system came highly recommended. I will see if any of the local reefers has a handheld for sure.

The main problem remains though which is, is there a way the system could be putting pieces of filter floss or something into the water that makes a layer of nasty particles on the surface? Stuff is horrible and so fine I can't net it out...thinking of having the s.o. try to look at it under a microscope.

I have never had any kind lf allergic reaction to anything, have worked in this tank and many others for decades, and there is no other culprit I can find. It's been 4 days and my arm, which was in the tank smiting aiptasia for about 25 minutes, still looks like this. Just the one arm, up to where the waterline covered.

 

[ninja007]

 

[AZDesertRat]

No a RO membrane is an absolute barrier and traps everything donw to dissolved levels or around 0.0001 microns. You can see something around 40.0 microns with the unaided human eye so the RO is very efficient.

I would upgrade the filters when you need to replace them with much better Spectrapure brand filters and resin, they work better, last longer and will give you true 0 TDS or 18 megaohm resistivity water. They use a 0.5 micron absolute rated sediment filter which does a much better job of proteting the 0.5 micron 20,000 gallon carbon block which in turn protects the RO membrane better so it lasts longer which in turn makes the DI last longer and cost you less money in replacements. Spectrapure blends all their own resins in house based on tens of thousands of hours of bench and real world testing then it is packed fresh in vacuum sealed mylar bags, usually the day it ships so it does not ge tany fresher or better.
SpectraPure - Great Deals on All your Water Management needs!

"Why should I switch vendors and go with SpectraPure?" - Reef Central Online Community

 

[ninja007]

Thanks AZ. I don't know what is making it through the purifier but I have someone looking at a sample of the water in a lab, should be interesting.

 

[shecter]

Those filters look spent. It doesn't explain your reaction though. That looks bad. Ill be interested to see what caused it. And fwiw my di filter doesn't fill up all the way either. But I have the same 5 stage plus unit you do and mine works great. Maybe just a faulty filter like you stated.

 

[AZDesertRat]

Keep us informed, I curious myself.

 

[ninja007]

Ok, finally being at the end of my rope and having seemingly ruled out the ro/di and any other incoming contaminates, I had a little hypothesis that it had to be some base rock somehow gone bad (I had put a couple pieces in there a few weeks beforehand). Then the other idea was that somehow something living in there was going crazy for some reason.

My gf works at Northwestern Memorial downtown Chicago in their lab. So I sent a sample up there w/ her and she and their pathologists looked at it under the scope. It was jam packed with some kind of protozoans described as "happily thriving" in there. Too small to see w/ the eye so still not an explaination in and of themselves since the stuff in the tank were large as sawdust.

Well I had a pretty bad glass anemone outbreak a while back which I had decided to cure by starving them out w/ light and nutrient denial. I figured maybe it was nematocysts (sp?) stinging me but that made no sense really because it happened while I was cleaning some off the glass, which doesn't happen. You can't feel their sting, anyone who's touched them knows they don't pack that kind of punch. IOW they were in there well before I had my arm in there and I had noticed them a week prior.

I asked her to look again and check if they were actually stinging cells not protozoa. She and a specialist waited till they had some extra time and sure enough that's what it is. I now believe the larger volume of available turf and water volume combined with conditions lethal to the existing animals spurred a mass spawning event. And they spawn by essentially jettisoning tiny viciously stinging swarms of hellbent little monsters. None of this is unheard of by a long shot but man, sure didn't see it coming on this sort of scale.

Now to purge them w/o emptying the whole **** tank. Thinking power filter, they are large enough to mechanically remove esp. with a surface skimmer. I also have a commercial sized protein skimmer, guess it's time to get that thing rolling. What an adventure, just goes to show that even the tiniest thing in the ocean has a way to defend itself savagely. I once heard that the ocean is one giant submerged Australia

But the 3 little damsels in there? Totally unfazed.