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Kati Ani unit question

malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
Bruce,

the Kati-Ani 5 i got:
- my input line is 640ppm (after the water softener)
- rate set as ~8gph

- in the beginning it was giving me reading of 7ppm
- this afternoon i noticed it was giving me 135ppm?
- after 40g more water, and now it is having a reading of 634ppm?

so far it only used to produce about 180g to 200g of water.

- i will need to test the water hardness tomorrow, but i still can't find my test kit - YET!
- I checked the connection, all good, color of the reins looks the same (may be it need to recharge?)
- but how come so soon? (Cati-Ani-5 of 5900 HG) / (200g produced) ==> ~30 GH in my water? (can this be right?)

Please advise...

thx
 
A

Artisan Corals

David,

It is possible that your GH level can be that high after a water softener, but certainly your TDS is. This is why I recommended plumbing the Kati Ani before the water softener. As I stated before, the softener does remove hardness, but replaces it by dumping a lot of salts back into the water making your total TDS much higher than unsoftened water. The Kati Ani will use up ion exchange to remove the salts. Almost always, the Kati Ani will last longer with unsoftened water.

Bruce
 
malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
i think last time http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=8973.msg85945#msg85945

...
The Kati Ani should be placed before the water softener. The water softener does take out the hardness chemicals, but it replaces them with others (sodium), so your TDS is typically higher and thus uses up the Kati Ani resins quicker. It can be used either way though.
...
Click to expand...



Well, it is too much quicker... :(

is there any other way (beside a TDS meter to measure the output of the unit) - to determine the unit need to recharge?

thx
 
malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
Bruce,

I rewire the input as AFTER the water softener...

I also did a regenerated, TDS input was 410, and the initial value TDS output shows about 7.

and after ~200g of water usage, and now the output show 550 ??

can you please advise? or may be you can help to stop by to see what is the problem?
i am in Green Brook, 08812.
thx
 
A

Artisan Corals

David,

You stated that you rewired your output after the softener. I think you mean that you rewired your output to before the softener.

If your tap water TDS is 410 then that is extremely high (highest I've seen). As stated from the beginning, we really need to know your GH to know if the Kati Ani is performing properly. It is conceivable that your GH could be over 20 which means you would get less that 300 gallons through before needing to regenerate.

I know this is disappointing to have to regenerate so often, but I think you must have had high expenses and a very high level of wasted water with an RO/DI system. When I was in Germany, they spoke of water in a part of Switzerland which had TDS of 950. The only system that would work in that water was Kati Ani. They had to regenerate very often, but it was the best alternative.

Unfortunately David, you might just have very expensive tap water. Meaning however you need to purify it means that it will cost you more than anyone else.

Let me know your GH and we will go from there.

Thanks,
Bruce
 
malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
Bruce,

thanks for correcting - yes, i mean rewired to BEFORE softener.

I went to the Manhattan Reef frag swap to day (in a rush), i forgot to bring my tap water for them to help to test the GH for me!! i will try again tomorrow to bring to PetSmart or PetCo. (am tired today).

last time i checked the GH was more than 32, it is weird that the BEFORE and AFTER the softener all closed to only 200g?

(1)
is it possible that the reins are bad??

(2)
can you please help to confirm from your head quarter company, can it be hook up AFTER the softener...

(3)
is there any other ways to have a pre-filter or something? cause this is not going to work for me if continue regenerate like this...


thx
 
A

Artisan Corals

David,

Let's find out what your GH is first. You are asking similar questions that still can't be properly answered until we know your GH.

Bruce
 
R

reneeRN

Bruce,
I was checking out Davids unit and I tested his GH. It was way off the scale. It was twice as much as the highest number the scale had. Really. That was pre-water softener. I recall 33. Post-softener was 2. WOW he is not kidding. He has hard water.
Buying another test kit will not change how hard his water is. The TDS was so high, it was bizarre. I have well water, my pre r/o tds is 25-50. I almost dont need r/o.
Renee
 
J

Jcurry@wesketch

If he has such hard water then why filter it only to add back calcium & magnesium? TDS means Total Disolved Solids not just nitrates, phosphates etc...If his GH is 32 I would suspect he has high concentrations of calcium & pssibly magnesium in his water. Thus contributing to his high TDS readings.

If I were Malulu I would first look at my latest water bill and see who the provider is. Then I would call them and ask for their latest "Water Quality Report". This report will tell you what's in the water and at what levels for your general area. Then I would send a water sample to a lab and have it tested for Nitrate, Phosphate, silicate, calcium and magnesium. Based on the results from the lab I would then look at my alternatives to purify my water (if needed). Kold Sterile makes resin impregnated filter pads that target specific ions and there is also no waste water. The down side is they not make a pad to filter what you need.
 
A

Artisan Corals

Well, David wins the award for the hardest water known to man! Kati Ani MAY not be the best solution in his situation. However, I will ask for advice from Germany. I know when they have very, very hard water, they use two Kati canisters to one Ani. But at best that would extend his throughput to 400 gallons. I have used the Kold Steril with the same thinking that why strip out chemicals like calcium and magnesium that you just need to add back in. Well, I found that Kold Steril also does not remove Phosphate for instance and maybe others.

David probably should pay to have his water tested very thoroughly to make reasonable decisions.

I had a guy who used a RO system with tap water of GH 13 and TDS of 313. He switched to Kati Ani and then noticed a decrease in his coral's health. This was very puzzling and I worked with him like Sherlock Holmes to figure this out. Here he used both the filtered and the 'wasted' RO water for his aquariums. This is basically unfiltered tap water that +the carbon took out the chlorine. Anyway, it appears that the corals did not like the sudden drop of minerals in the water after the Kati Ani filtration. So he stopped all filtration (except carbon) and his corals improved. He's just lucky that although his water was hard, it was pure - for now. The morale of the story is that maybe David can determine what his water issues are and target them specifically instead of total purification like RO or DI.

Bruce
 
malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
I will try to go with the suggestion by Jerry (when i have a chance) I've been too busy at work these days, can't justify why spent time to made personal phone on fish tank related issue when the project delivery are about to falling behind.
:(

for the Kati-Ani unit, i think it would be a good idea to inform any potential buyer, they need to test their GH first, if they have high GH, then this may not be the option for them.

thx
 
JohnS_323

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
malulu said:
for the Kati-Ani unit, i think it would be a good idea to inform any potential buyer, they need to test their GH first, if they have high GH, then this may not be the option for them.
Click to expand...

I don't really want to get in the middle of this but to be fair I will say that I clearly heard Bruce say that at Ken's meeting. He specifically said to check you GH first to A) determine what size unit you would need and B) to see if it's even the right option.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
That would be interesting. For example running the output of the Kold Sterile through a PO4 reactor might get rid of the unwanted PO4 from the water while leaving the Ca & Alk.
 
malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
Phyl,

thanks for the note, this is not an argument, i am just trying to emphasis for others, that this is a very important factor.

this could be my fault - I got the impression of:

the Cati-Ani unit usage is based on GH of the water, the more GH the water, the faster it would need to regenerated, i was thinking i have water softener, so the water would not be HARD (GH=3), but it would not work as expected, and i also did not expect my BEFORE softener's GH=30+ (compared to the normal range of 5 or 6)

thx

JohnS_323 said:
malulu said:
for the Kati-Ani unit, i think it would be a good idea to inform any potential buyer, they need to test their GH first, if they have high GH, then this may not be the option for them.
Click to expand...

I don't really want to get in the middle of this but to be fair I will say that I clearly heard Bruce say that at Ken's meeting. He specifically said to check you GH first to A) determine what size unit you would need and B) to see if it's even the right option.
Click to expand...
 
malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
Phyl,

oops, sorry for the mix up...
my previously replied was meant for John... (your two's logo do look alike...)
;)
 
A

Artisan Corals

I recently saw on some post that they thought Kold Steril was out of business. Could be a vicious rumor, but worth looking into before contemplating this direction. I remember when I had the Phosphate issue and called Kold Steril, they admitted that there was another bad compound that Kold Steril did not remove, but there was a work around (as there is for the Phosphate). I just don't remember the other issue. Around that time Anthony Calfo emphatically recommended the Kati Ani system and I had such a hard time acquiring it that I started distributing them.
 
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