RODI Water Analysis from ATI Triton Type Test

crs751 · Dec 5, 2017

I recently received the results for the ATI version of Triton testing. They test your RODI water as well as the tank water. The report showed that my RODI water was high in Silicon, Barium, Copper, Phosphorus, Phosphate. Lower levels of Nickel, Molybdenum and Zinc were present. It appears I need to change my filters but is there filter media that I can add to my RODI system that will remove/reduce the higher level elements (Silicon, Barium, Copper, etc) or are there some of these elements that don't affect the water quality for the tank?

Ocelaris · Dec 5, 2017

How many stages of di do you have? What's your rejection rate going into your di? When they say your rodi water is high in those minerals, did they give you numbers?

Cory · Dec 5, 2017

crs751 said:
I recently received the results for the ATI version of Triton testing. They test your RODI water as well as the tank water. The report showed that my RODI water was high in Silicon, Barium, Copper, Phosphorus, Phosphate. Lower levels of Nickel, Molybdenum and Zinc were present. It appears I need to change my filters but is there filter media that I can add to my RODI system that will remove/reduce the higher level elements (Silicon, Barium, Copper, etc) or are there some of these elements that don't affect the water quality for the tank?

You could use metazorb. This is why i dislike ro/di systems. Distilled water is vastly superior and more money too.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 6, 2017

crs751 said:
I recently received the results for the ATI version of Triton testing. They test your RODI water as well as the tank water. The report showed that my RODI water was high in Silicon, Barium, Copper, Phosphorus, Phosphate. Lower levels of Nickel, Molybdenum and Zinc were present. It appears I need to change my filters but is there filter media that I can add to my RODI system that will remove/reduce the higher level elements (Silicon, Barium, Copper, etc) or are there some of these elements that don't affect the water quality for the tank?

I've addressed this issue with them that this information is useless without some guidance. And one cannot give that guidance without knowing how much is there relative to the aquarium water and how such ions cycle through the tank.

What were the actual numbers?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 6, 2017

Cory said:
You could use metazorb. This is why i dislike ro/di systems. Distilled water is vastly superior and more money too.

Have you seen actual comparative data?

orr2003 · Dec 6, 2017

crs751 said:
I recently received the results for the ATI version of Triton testing. They test your RODI water as well as the tank water. The report showed that my RODI water was high in Silicon, Barium, Copper, Phosphorus, Phosphate. Lower levels of Nickel, Molybdenum and Zinc were present. It appears I need to change my filters but is there filter media that I can add to my RODI system that will remove/reduce the higher level elements (Silicon, Barium, Copper, etc) or are there some of these elements that don't affect the water quality for the tank?

Do you have a TDS meter on your filter? And if so does it read zero after the DI resin?

crs751 · Dec 6, 2017

Thanks for all of the responses. I do have a TDS monitor that currently shows 1. I have a Water General RODI 5 stage RODI unit. I’m not sure what my rejection rate is. I am at work now but will post the results of the test soon. Thanks again for the help.

Cory · Dec 6, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Have you seen actual comparative data?

No i haven't thats just imo. But for hobbiests distilled is less complicated and imo vastly superior because of this. Its hard to mess up steam and activated carbon. But have one of those ro/di filters go bad without knowing and your in trouble.

Steam and carbon= pure enough water for tanks.

Sediment filter and carbon and reverse osmoisos membrane then pass throgh deion resin. Pure enough.

orr2003 · Dec 6, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Have you seen actual comparative data?

Randy, do you have any comparative data? My assumption has always been pure zero TDS RO/DI water would be void of all minerals. Is this not true?

Cory said:
No i haven't thats just imo. But for hobbiests distilled is less complicated and imo vastly superior because of this. Its hard to mess up steam and activated carbon. But have one of those ro/di filters go bad without knowing and your in trouble.

Steam and carbon= pure enough water for tanks.

Sediment filter and carbon and reverse osmoisos membrane then pass throgh deion resin. Pure enough.

I disagree with the statement distilled is less complicated and vastly superior, but until I see the data this is jmo. Not sure how you could get into trouble with RO/DI as long as you have two DI chambers and a three stage TDS monitor. Reading TDS going in to the first DI chamber, reading TDS going out of the first DI chamber and reading TDS going out of the second chamber should be (or at least has been for me for almost 2 decades) fail proof. That being said I turn my RO/DI unit on and off when my holding tank needs water so the TDS gets checked everytime I turn it on and turn it off. If the TDS coming out of chamber one reads anything but zero I replace the resin and move DI chamber number two into the first spot and put the new DI resin second in line. Seems pretty simple to me.

Ocelaris · Dec 6, 2017

Cory said:
No i haven't thats just imo. But for hobbiests distilled is less complicated and imo vastly superior because of this. Its hard to mess up steam and activated carbon. But have one of those ro/di filters go bad without knowing and your in trouble.

Steam and carbon= pure enough water for tanks.

Sediment filter and carbon and reverse osmoisos membrane then pass throgh deion resin. Pure enough.

You're the first person I've ever heard in my 20+ years in the hobby seriously recommend distilled water. It's a scientific comparison between levels of chemicals in the water after processing. Let's not throw out decades of technology in water purification for an insignificant amount of minerals slipping past an ro system. Check out the brs videos on di resin. It's very informative, and you'll notice nobody sells or even considers a distiller. Nobody uses cati/Ani towers either, because just like distillation, they're an ancient, wasteful and difficult technology.

crs751 · Dec 6, 2017

The attached file is a copy of a scan of the RODI test report. Please review and let me know your thoughts.

crs751 · Dec 6, 2017

Sorry the file was attached twice. They are both the same report.

Ocelaris · Dec 6, 2017

It looks like silicon and phosphorus are the only significant elements getting through. I believe those are both weakly charged elements, so it makes sense. These are some cool videos about the chemistry of rodi which may be of interest.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vide...-free-of-all-contaminants-brstv-investigates/

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vide...ates-mixed-or-single-bed-di-resin-maybe-both/

Cory · Dec 6, 2017

orr2003 said:
Randy, do you have any comparative data? My assumption has always been pure zero TDS RO/DI water would be void of all minerals. Is this not true?

I disagree with the statement distilled is less complicated and vastly superior, but until I see the data this is jmo. Not sure how you could get into trouble with RO/DI as long as you have two DI chambers and a three stage TDS monitor. Reading TDS going in to the first DI chamber, reading TDS going out of the first DI chamber and reading TDS going out of the second chamber should be (or at least has been for me for almost 2 decades) fail proof. That being said I turn my RO/DI unit on and off when my holding tank needs water so the TDS gets checked everytime I turn it on and turn it off. If the TDS coming out of chamber one reads anything but zero I replace the resin and move DI chamber number two into the first spot and put the new DI resin second in line. Seems pretty simple to me.

Thats fine. All the distilled water ive made tested 0 tds. Ro/di is complicated. Just think of all the potential points to fail. Filters to change. Ammonia to pass through membranes. Deion resin expires and you dont notice in time, then it actually lets some of it out. This is imo. But what i say has some truth to it.

That said i use ro/di because distilled is too exspensive.

Cory · Dec 6, 2017

Ocelaris said:
You're the first person I've ever heard in my 20+ years in the hobby seriously recommend distilled water. It's a scientific comparison between levels of chemicals in the water after processing. Let's not throw out decades of technology in water purification for an insignificant amount of minerals slipping past an ro system. Check out the brs videos on di resin. It's very informative, and you'll notice nobody sells or even considers a distiller. Nobody uses cati/Ani towers either, because just like distillation, they're an ancient, wasteful and difficult technology.

So what? I dont reccomend it i said its superior. Just think for a second why it might be superior.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 6, 2017

orr2003 said:
Randy, do you have any comparative data? My assumption has always been pure zero TDS RO/DI water would be void of all minerals. Is this not true?

I disagree with the statement distilled is less complicated and vastly superior, but until I see the data this is jmo. Not sure how you could get into trouble with RO/DI as long as you have two DI chambers and a three stage TDS monitor. Reading TDS going in to the first DI chamber, reading TDS going out of the first DI chamber and reading TDS going out of the second chamber should be (or at least has been for me for almost 2 decades) fail proof. That being said I turn my RO/DI unit on and off when my holding tank needs water so the TDS gets checked everytime I turn it on and turn it off. If the TDS coming out of chamber one reads anything but zero I replace the resin and move DI chamber number two into the first spot and put the new DI resin second in line. Seems pretty simple to me.

Definitely not true. What it means is that you do not have much, but if you look at any real water sample and you will find almost any element at some concentration.

If the top off adds one tenth or one one hundredth of the copper in foods each day, is that a problem?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 6, 2017

Ocelaris said:
It looks like silicon and phosphorus are the only significant elements getting through. I believe those are both weakly charged elements, so it makes sense. These are some cool videos about the chemistry of rodi which may be of interest.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vide...-free-of-all-contaminants-brstv-investigates/

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vide...ates-mixed-or-single-bed-di-resin-maybe-both/

Yes, that makes sense. It also turns out that the values are usually too low to matter.

Even 0.05 ppm phosphate in top off water is totally insignificant relative to the tens to hundreds of times more added each day in foods. I wrote a paper with actual data on foods and such proving this. I’ll link it in the next post.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 6, 2017

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry

Mark Gray · Dec 6, 2017

Ocelaris said:
You're the first person I've ever heard in my 20+ years in the hobby seriously recommend distilled water. It's a scientific comparison between levels of chemicals in the water after processing. Let's not throw out decades of technology in water purification for an insignificant amount of minerals slipping past an ro system. Check out the brs videos on di resin. It's very informative, and you'll notice nobody sells or even considers a distiller. Nobody uses cati/Ani towers either, because just like distillation, they're an ancient, wasteful and difficult technology.

I have a distiller but I guess I am getting ancient lol