RO..... DI?

[Jager]

i was at a members house yesterday and we were looking over his system, he is running an LPS tank with softies and he ecently added a 4 stage RO/DI and stacked it with his exsisting 2 stage. He is now pulling 0-1 parts per million on his water, brilliantly clean but his "dirty" corals are grieving with the addition. Xenia's inperticular but i think there was a couple others.

Is the DI stage to much / uncalled for in a softie / LPS tank being that they like the "dirtier" water.

i dont run DI and it hasnt been a secret that im not an SPS fan so i dont plan on expanding to them, my LPS and softies have been great, vibrant and extremely happy.

Is adding a DI unit a bad idea for a "dirty" tank or just for someone who doesnt plan on running SPS? ive been thinking about a 4 stage and have even looked at dual di filters... but seeing what was going on with his tank has made me think twice.

[RaysReef]

I'm running R/O Dual DI, I've got LPS/softies/Acro

*currently typing and thinking how to word my word* BRB

[Jager]

hmmm assuming then your running 0-1 ppm on your water. Acans and yumas do well in the sps style tanks too tho dont they? heck you had sps for awhile there

[RaysReef]

Having the DI and bring your water to 0ppm isn't going to affect your corals, its what you do after the fact. Even though u are @ 0ppm once you introduce the salt mix your adding back *beneficial properties* with the option of adding CA/Mag/ALK etc to bring your parameters to where you want it to be and not adding negative effects of tap/well water.

Now once you add it to you system "its considered dirty water" since its mixed in with your old water. I hate to use the term "dirty" when you just cleaned and did a WC in your tank. Dirty water IMO is the water you dump/siphon out, I like the term nutrient enriched "Yes you heard it first"!

For your tank to be more nutrient enriched with LPS/Softies typically people do less WC % per week or do it less often, heck I know some people do WC every 6 months to a year and just do ATO on a LPS/softie tank. Also either skimmer less or run it quite a bit less compared to an SPS tank, usually run every other day or 2 days, IMO. Po3 ranging up to .05 is still considered safe.

For an SPS tank, well you know what you need...*Prestine water condition*

Mix Reef- which my 57G is on...My water is geared more towards prestine, but I do overfeed to build that nutrient factor, but my skimmer and filtration would clean it up nicely and I start over again the next day. I also do about 10% WC weekly.

Hopefully I answered the question, if not sorry...I talk too much, typically I like to use hand gesters, so you can see how hard it is for me to get across what I'm trying to type sometime.

[RaysReef]

hmmm assuming then your running 0-1 ppm on your water. Acans and yumas do well in the sps style tanks too tho dont they? heck you had sps for awhile there

I'm running 3-4 ppm after the 3 stage and after the dual DI I'm at 0ppm. Yes, have SPS mixed with LPS and softies it was a tough road in maintaining growth and coloration on the SPS part in a frag mixed tank...The rest were doing great! As for my display tank Its setup better than my frag tank so the water quality can easily be high in nutrients to prestine fairly quickly while keeping all my parameters to where all my corals are showing good coloration. Typically corals will color up first before it really start to grow, not the other way around. *Again typically, with the acception of softies/zoas/palys*

I'm planning possibly doing just a SPS frag tank only in the near future, instead of mix. While LPS/softies will still be together.

[Jager]

yea im sure your talking with your hands to the computer screen right now actually lol

yea i wasnt really taking in the salt aspect, step had skipped my mind. I was thinking that to much of the beneficial elements of the water or extra nutrients that may have been in the water were being taken out, not remembering taking in that salt goes in next, and some of us myself included even add additional minerals and such on top of the salt so yea the di wont effect my tank negativley at all.

Thanks Ray

[RaysReef]

Cool, I'm glad, you got what I wanted to get across what I meant to say...*lol I just confused myself there* I had to read it 2x before pressing the submit button.

My Dennis Green moment- They were who we thought they were!

[David Grigor]

There has to be more to the story. The issue cannot be specifically pointed to DI. DI will not in any shape or form be negative to corals.

The salt has all the necessary ions and most all salts are designed to use with ro/di.

Replacing evaporation with RO/DI adds no additional minerals/metals. But then again, none of those were removed from evaporation either. So RO/DI will not change. It will only mean less accumulation in future.

Now if you tank was really dirty and neglected doing large water changes that could quickly reduce phosphates, nitrates and other elements that have been accumulating could possibily have an impact. However, not near to the degree as using phosphate removers etc. would as the change likely are not that sudden.

Doesn't matter if an acro tank, softy tank or what. RO/DI for all evaporation and mixing salt is recommended.