I'm lucky in that my tap water is pretty good for drinking, but I've lived in places that we've had to filter it. You want to be careful drinking RO/DI because you're removing all the minerals, ions, etc, including both the good and the bad. Your body actually needs many of the substances filtered from the water. If you're going to drink RO/DI water over the long term, you should talk to a nutrition expert about supplements.

In regards to a reef tank, I'd go with the RO/DI unit. You don't really know what's in your tapwater. By filtering it, you start with a clean slate, and control the substances in your water through your salt mix.

The directions for my 4 stage RO/DI systems was to only drink the water that goes through the particulate, carbon and RO membrane and not the DI filter. My tap water tastes great and I don't care for the taste of RO but it's nice to have in the event of a contaminated water supply and it also makes great coffee!

The Kinetico has an additional Mineral Cartridge that add's back the necessary minerals for you, thanks for the heads up though!

Cool, I didn't know that, maybe I'll have to look at them.

thats actualy an old wife's tale started by mineral water companies. if you eat you get more than enough minerals from your food.

Steve

true i would think alot of our food is water based anyways:)

I've got a home made DI Filter, RO is nice but I find it unneccesary, my filter litterally cost me like 55 bucks for filters chambers and plumbing, and my TDS is 13ppm going in and 0 coming out! most of the parts you can get from Rona or Homedepot and the filters you get from your LFS. mine is 2 chamber large particle filter followed by DI, it runs fast clean and quick!

I think i will agree with this. I have a 4 stage RO/DI and the waste water is just crazy not environment friendly. I read couple of articles too that RO and DI does same thing. So on the weekend i tried disconnecting the RO, then install the TDS meter after DI and this was the result:
Before: IN- 13 OUT- 0
After: IN- 12 or 13 OUT - 0 or 1
less waste and good for the environment. hopefully it will work out..
Just my reaction...\\:biggrin:

Same sort of result but not the same thing, and there is a lot of stuff the ro strips out that a DI won't touch.

RO strips all the minerals/chemicals out of the water and leaves you with nothing but pure water. DI is a Ion exchange process where salts are replaced with Hydrogen making your water acidic and then the next resin makes it normal.

in industry where DI is called for is polishing ro water as a DI doesent remove a lot of the contamanants so you use the RO to remove the bulk and then a DI to remove anything else. on its own a DI will not last very log at all.

We used DI water for out boilers as it has to be absolutly cleen water, but the water went through a RO first down to about 5ppm then went through a two stage DI, mixed bed resins are very inefficient, the best way to do it would be to have one resin then the next resin in a different cartrage.

Steve

Thanks for another good information. But i am going to try it anyway, my water bill went sky rocket because of the waste water...:mrgreen: