Saltwater mixing station - temperature questions...

[Lylelovett]

Hi all,

So I live in Arizona where during the summer my garage gets 90-110 depending on the day...

My plan was to set up my saltwater mixing station in the garage. Does anyone have any experience/thoughts about either the RODI or the Saltwater being that warm for several months?

If I do this, when I do a water change I'd figure I'd bring the mixed salt water to come down to temp.

Am I going to run into more trouble since salinity measurements are so depending on temperature of the water?

Will the water even stay "good" if it sits in that heat?

Is it just a completely bad idea to put it out there?

Any insight you can provide will help me figure this out.

Thanks.

 

[RobZilla04]

I wouldn't worry about it. Just make the necessary adjustments to salinity to understand how much less/more salt you need for the mixing station to account for the temp adjustment later. Although tedious, that can even be done on the fly each time you do a WC.

 

[JDtimk]

I feel like it's not an ideal situation to have to cool down the water before putting it into your tank. How are you going to do that? Chiller? Ice? Ambient room temp inside? Depending on the volume of water and how quickly you need to use it, it might be a thorn in your side long term.

If you have to place a portion of the water production and storage in the garage, I would rather produce it in the garage and store it inside at the very least. Then you could run a heater in the stored water and it would be at temp when you need it.

As far as damaging the membrane with hot water, this quote is from a Q and A published by a RO supply store. It looks like it's possible that making RO water with water that exceeds the 95f can damage the membrane, but your water source shouldn't be that warm even if you are housing the RO unit in the hot garage.

"Your upper limit is somewhere around 95°F (35°C) before there is membrane damage." http://www.purewaterproducts.com/articles/ro-membrane-production

 

[Lylelovett]

Thanks all. I'm trying to find a better solution, but may have to do some combination in the short term.

As far as lowering the temp, most likely just bringing it in the house say 24 hours before use to bring it down. I'm only planning on 15-20g water changes at any given time.

Water source temp - correct, the water running through wouldn't be above 80 most likely.

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

Thanks all. I'm trying to find a better solution, but may have to do some combination in the short term.

As far as lowering the temp, most likely just bringing it in the house say 24 hours before use to bring it down. I'm only planning on 15-20g water changes at any given time.

Water source temp - correct, the water running through wouldn't be above 80 most likely.

people not here in az don’t know of our struggles. lol

yes, it is preferred to bring the temp down when mixing new water. i used to use a small chiller for that. now i do auto water changes and the higher/lower temps don’t make a difference because it’s such a small amount of water. most of us do keep our mixing stations in a garage so this issue is very common here. look into a mini chiller for summer and a heater for winter.

just noticed you’re not changing that much at a time. bring the buckets into the house, stick a thermometer in one bucket then wait for the temp to come down. could take a few hours. or make it easy on yourself and get a chiller.

 

[Atti2de]

I set my station in the garage here in Texas. Come summer time I had to get a chiller. My water was easily in the 90 temp range. Chiller worked great for me with no issues.