• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Membrane ?

I just found out last night that my ro system hoses were connected wrong at the manufactor. So basically the waste hose was were the ro hose should be and vice versa. So that means that I've been putting waste water into my display.
Now my question is since the hoses were wrong is my membrane ruined?
 

Tazmaniancowboy

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
As long as your TDS = 0, you probably don't have much to worry about.
Not quite sure I agree with this, you can put water directly into DI resin without running through a membrane and get 0 tds. You should take a reading before the DI stage. I do agree however that you are probably fine with the membrane
 
Not quite sure I agree with this, you can put water directly into DI resin without running through a membrane and get 0 tds. You should take a reading before the DI stage. I do agree however that you are probably fine with the membrane

Agreed on the membrane. It was infact working properly just the tubes were reversed. As for the water being "0" TDS why should that be an issue. The DI was stripping the water clean so I would think it would be fine. Now the DI may be prematurely exausted since it was cleaning waste water.

Taz, Isn't the purpose of the DI to make a final strip of the water to ensure "0" TDS. If the TDS meter is before the DI stage how will one know when the DI needs changing. Or are you saying that one should check going in and out of the DI.
 
Taz, Isn't the purpose of the DI to make a final strip of the water to ensure "0" TDS. If the TDS meter is before the DI stage how will one know when the DI needs changing. Or are you saying that one should check going in and out of the DI.

Yes, you should know what the readings are before and after the DI unit. Otherwise, you won't know the condition of your membrane. A dual in-line TDS meter is the easiest, with the probes before and after the DI unit.
 

Tazmaniancowboy

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
As for the water being "0" TDS why should that be an issue. The DI was stripping the water clean so I would think it would be fine. Now the DI may be prematurely exausted since it was cleaning waste water.

Taz, Isn't the purpose of the DI to make a final strip of the water to ensure "0" TDS. If the TDS meter is before the DI stage how will one know when the DI needs changing. Or are you saying that one should check going in and out of the DI.
I guess I should have been clearer. Yes there should be multiple readings here to verify that the membrane is working. just because the DI is bringing it down to "o" does not mean that the membrane is working. As I stated earlier you can run "raw" water(no filters or membrane) straight from the tap through DI resin and get a "0" tds final product. This is how the Kati-ani system works. What will happen here though is that the DI resin will be used up much faster.

Back to the membrane. I would check your water before the membrane and then your water after the membrane (before DI) to see that the membrane is pulling out the percentage that it is designed for. This is the only way to find out if a membrane is working properly. We all should check out theses numbers occasionally to see how the membrane is aging. If the membrane is not working as efficiently as it is supposed to, it is not harmful, but you will burn through DI resin much faster than a membrane that is working properly.

Hope that clears up the confusion
 
A dual in-line TDS meter is the easiest, with the probes before and after the DI unit.

This is good to know cause I have my TDS meter hook up on my water supply coming into the system and then on the output of my di.

And boy was I going thru some DI. I just knew something wast right with the system. Since I was only getting about 60gal of good water before I had to change di resin.
 
I guess I should have been clearer. Yes there should be multiple readings here to verify that the membrane is working. just because the DI is bringing it down to "o" does not mean that the membrane is working. As I stated earlier you can run "raw" water(no filters or membrane) straight from the tap through DI resin and get a "0" tds final product. This is how the Kati-ani system works. What will happen here though is that the DI resin will be used up much faster.

Back to the membrane. I would check your water before the membrane and then your water after the membrane (before DI) to see that the membrane is pulling out the percentage that it is designed for. This is the only way to find out if a membrane is working properly. We all should check out theses numbers occasionally to see how the membrane is aging. If the membrane is not working as efficiently as it is supposed to, it is not harmful, but you will burn through DI resin much faster than a membrane that is working properly.

Hope that clears up the confusion

Gotcha, I currently have mine set up to measure going into and coming out of the system. I guess it really a preference. Assuming I have a dual inline meter and measure before and after the membrane how would I know when DI is exausted.
 
Gotcha, I currently have mine set up to measure going into and coming out of the system. I guess it really a preference. Assuming I have a dual inline meter and measure before and after the membrane how would I know when DI is exausted.

The way I knew when my di was almost exhaust was I have the color change resin.
 
But still I had my TDS meter on the output of the di to verify when my TDS started to rise. I have seen some systems with 2 TDS meter.
 
Downbeach I've actually seen ro systems with Two of the dual inline TDS meters connected to their ro systems. I guess they check every step of the filtration process.
 
Top