Hard water

[Jon]

So I’ve been stuggling with hard water and I’m looking for suggestions. My alkalinity about a month ago was 14. I had it tested by TSM aquatics. Following the guidance of TSM Aquatics I started doing 15 gallon water changes once a week to try and lower it slowly. My tank and sump hold roughly 80 gallons of water. So we thought this was a safe amount. After five weeks and five 15 gallon water changes my alk has only dropped a couple of points. TSM also tested my water when I made a fresh batch before I did the actual water change. The alk was very high before I did the change and we are thinking that my actual city water maybe very hard. I use a liquigen 75 gpd 3 stage RO unit on my sink that is four months old and the salt that is use is Neonarine by brightwell.

Has anyone else ever encountered this before? Should I change or add a different resin on my RO unit To help with this?

thanks.

 

[Roca]

What is the TDS of the product from your RO?

Neomarine is supposed to mix to an alk of ~7.5 according to what I read online. It could be possible you have a bad batch of salt if your RO is producing 0TDS (or close to).

My tap runs about 250TDS and comes out my RO (150gpd 5 stage @80psi with a booster pump) at around 1-2 and then at 0 from the DI resin.

 

[Jon]

I’m gonna have them read my TDS in the next few days. If my water is unnormally high for some reason, is there a special cartridge or something to put in the canisters of my RO unit.

One thing that I have noticed lately.... is that when I turn my RO unit on, it makes the water much quicker these days. It use to take me about 35 minutes to produce five gallons of clean water and now it takes me about 23 minutes to produce five gallons Of clean water.

 

[Roca]

If your RO unit is rated 75GPD you should be looking at taking about 1.5hrs to make 5 gallons of water.
35 mins for 5 gallons is around 200gpd and 23 mins for 5 gallons is around 300gpd.

So it seems there is something definitely off with your RO in that sense. Is your waste line producing a ton of water?

As a silly thought, could you be accidentally using the waste water instead? The waste water would come at about 3-4x the rate of the product is the pressure is adequate.

It would definitely be a good investment to get a TDS meter for your system though so you know if anything is wrong in the future. Something like the link below is best to see before and after your RO membrane and know if there is an issue with your system. A TDS pen is useful to have around also for quick checks.

Dual Inline TDS Meter DM-1

Why does BRS recommend this? Using a RODI system without a TDS meter is like driving a car without a speedometer and gas gauge. At some point you will end up in trouble. With RODI systems it is TDS that you will want to monitor for performance and filter quality. By using a dual TDS meter it...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

 

[Jon]

Well, I feel like a dumb ass right now... I took my rodi unit off the wall and had a good look at it. It appears that the hoses were not assembled correctly. Now, I had the correct water line draining to my bucket but the flow from chamber to chamber was incorrect. Who knows what type of water I had coming out the clean line. I’m currently making water now and it looks like I will be able to make five gallons of water in about an hour. I hope this fixes my problem.

 

[Roca]

Hey, as long as the problem get fixed. Watch next time you set up an RODI you'll spend forever checking, double checking, triple checking, and double checking everything again just to be safe haha.

You should definitely check the TDS of this new water along with your tap water to make sure your RO membrane is still ok and are getting good product before using up more salt. Also might as well check that whatever you are using to check the salinity of the water matches what is supposed to be while you are at it.
1/2 cup/gallon should get you to 1.025 per the neomarine instructions.

 

[Jon]

I ordered a tds pen and will have it here on Tuesday. I’m interested in what they levels will look like.
thanks your your advice - Jon

 

[MadReefer]

I had similar problem of why it took so long to make water.
Ended up being that a small hose going from one chamber to another was kinked; once straightened it worked fine.