Add Calcium to your DI water
 

this is a good idea for those that want to bolster calcium and trace elements in their aquarium with no effort....

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/02/23/r...ge/#more-15672

Very cool idea. I think I'll give this a try as it is very cheap and no extra effort. I like that combination!:biggrin:

That's interesting. I wouldn't have guessed though that pH of 7.0 was enough to significantly dissolve enough aragonite to be meaningful. It would be interesting to test Ca and Alk, pre- and post- canister to see the difference. Too bad I chucked out the last bit of reactor media I had, I would have loved to try it - although I don't have a spare filter canister I could have used anyhow. Soooo ... anyone else want to give it a try and post the Ca and Alk numbers?

x2 !

looks like I got a use for that old canister, now just need some sand

I will try to do this today or tomorrow. I will take readings and post them as soon I can. hopefully other may try this and we can compare results.:biggrin:

I run a storage (bladder) tank off my ro/di, wondering best if the sand cartridge before or after the tank (or doesn't matter).

I would put it after just to prevent any sand particles from carrying over into your storage tank, but it really doesn't matter.

Would you be able to run this in place of a calcium reactor? Maybe threw your ATO.

I'm curious to see if this makes a difference. I've got a few spare cartridges kicking around somewhere, maybe even a clear one. I think I'll try setting one up right before my ATO goes into my tank. Flow should be nice and slow there. Too bad all my old sand is now in the garden :sad:

haven't set up myself yet, wondering if anyone has results?

I have done something similar. I used an old Aquaclear 70 filter and put in a bag of aragonite. I have the filter hanging on my top up resivoir. It buffers the water just fine, I doubt if there is enough top up water going in the DT to keep calcium levels up.

My RO/DI water is "0" TDS
Tap water is 13 TDS some times 15 TDS when its raining.
Tap water Ph 8.5 but as soon as in the glass and as soon as i start swirling the Ph probe the Ph goes down to 7.0 in 30 seconds.

RO/DI water Ph is 9.0(!) but with the same almost instant Ph drop down to 6.9 after ph probe swirling in the glass.

Did anyone else tested their RO/DI water Ph?
Or even better Ph INSIDE the water filter?

ok, noob question here: Isn't the idea of a RO/DI filter to get something as close to pure H20 as possible so that you can add salt to it to get 'seawater' which contains all these elements -but nothing else ?

In other words, doesn't the SALT add all the necessary trace elements ?

no.

You'll find many salts if mixed as to their directions will get less than optimal levels of Ca and Mg to start. Plus corals like SPS will suck the Ca and alk out of the water column, reason people use CA reactors, kalk or dosing (manual or automatic).

I find that odd. Considering that reef salt is a very application-specific product, why don't they put appropriate amounts of Ca & Mg into the product then push frequent water changes ?

Just seems like a simple and efficient way of doing it.

what should be and what is can be a little different. Many posts on supplementing.

What unit of measure is your TDS reading, certainly not PPM.

When you refer to the "PH drop", I doubt if the PH is changing that rapidly, most likely it is the PH probe stabilizing. Think about it for a second, PH changing from 8.5 to 7 in 30 seconds without any additives is virtually impossible.

I think TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) is measured in PPM (Parts Per Million):smile:

I know how TDS is measured, I've never heard of 13 to 15 ppm out of a tap.

TDS in the neighborhood of 9-25 is pretty much the norm over here on the west coast. It'll go up a bit when the municipality cleans the water mains or when there is a big rain that increases sediment as RuGlu6 mentioned.

Now that is amazing! Your RO system must last forever. In Medicine Hat we are in excess of 200.