Top off and waste water plumbing

FuzzySPS

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I sure hope/think this is ultimately a reef chemistry question...

about to drill a hole in a wall between a closet where I’ll store a bunch of RODI water for top-off purposes and the opposite side of the wall where I can temporarily join tubing to a sink fifteen or so feet away while using the RODI unit that I’ll carry to the sink when needed. I’d really like to drill one hole rather than two so I’d like to tee off the point closest to the hole to run dirty tank water when doing an occasional water change using a Litermeter. Directly in front of the “t” I’d have a union with a valve to prevent back flowing the dirty water.

Long story made short, there’d likely be an inch or two potentially of tubing that would retain dirty tank water that would stay in the lines that would become part of my top-off water storage supply the next time I “stocked up”. I may be overly paranoid about keeping the top-off water as pristine as possible but am nonetheless wondering if an ounce or so, if even that much, of dirty tank water stored/intermixed along with about ninety gallons of RODI water (split among three interconnected thirty gallon closed food safe barrels) will cause my livestock to grow three heads or am I worrying about nothing?

Many thanks for any insight that can be provided. Stay well, all!
 
I share your paranoia about water quality for top-off ... I'm always paranoid that since that water sits so long before being consumed that bacteria or algae will colonize and turn it into some kind of nasty brew.

However, if you're confident that your RO/DI unit really is removing all nitrogen waste from your supply water, then it doesn't sound like there would be any nutrients in it for a bacteria colony or algae to take off in.
 
I’m confident about the RODI quality. It’s the inch or so of old tank water removed during a water change that will be trapped in the line (assuming I use a common line and not two separate ones) that will be pushed back into my top off reservoir when the flow direction is reversed the next time I make a large batch of toooff water.

And by the way, I’m about 40 minutes north of Houston and have a Canuck living about three doors down from me so you’re not alone here!
 

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