RO or RO/DI for drinking water?
 

I have an RO/DI filter system that has an RO only output for drinking water, and an RO/DI output for my reef resovoir. Any reason for not using the RO/DI one also for drinking water? I also have a pressure tank with my system.

My understanding is that we, as humans, need the minerals and trace elements. Pure water is not good.

I would take it this way... Those systems were initially designed to filter household drinking water.

If you want to drink water from it drink the waste water it has all the minerals and stuff removed from the filters.

I am in Langley, BC, and our GVRD drinking water is fairly pure to begin with. Tap water is about 50 to 70 TDS here. RO water is around 5 to 7 TDS and RO/DI is zero. So not sure how much difference it makes. Just wondering if the final DI filtration stage does something to the water that is not good for drinking?

We, as humans, get all we need from a proper diet, and pure water is the essence of life. All I drink is RO water, I'm fairly healthy :)

RO water YES. DI water NO. Do a search on the net, there is lots of info.

Correct, RO is what I mentioned. Which technically should be pure water.

Ya, if you were for instance say, working out in the hot sun all day, and only drinking RO/DI water, the sweat would remove necessary minerals and trace elements from our body, and the RO/DI water would not be replenishing them. I doubt you'd die from it but it may not be the best thing to do.

For sure these RO filter systems were used A LOT for household use.

BUT... I don't think I've seen many household water filters with a nuclear DI stage. I'd think the DI phase is used for specific and necessary purposes only I.E. reef keeping, industrial processes, etc. Did I mention reef keeping? :biggrin::biggrin:

Well, all I drink is RO water, and I run a lot out in the hot sun. Minerals come from the banana I ate, or the energy gel, or oatmeal for breakfast. It really is fine to drink RO (and probably DI) as long as you eat food,which almost everybody does. The ratio of minerals from water vs. food is so huge that the content in the water isn't worth counting. The water is not going to act like a magnet and suck the minerals from my body :)

Ive been drinking RODI for the last year or so now and I'm all healthy. Now if I was fasting for 3 days+ that might be an issue but mostly because I'd starve to death

Just as a comparison, here's some numbers. Potassium. I drink 3l of water a day on average. That amount of my local tap water has 0.6mg of K. The contents of my cooler for food today has over 1600mg of k. The +/- 0.6mg I do or don't get from water is completely insignificant. If I drink RO and it sucks the 0.6mg from my cells, I still have 1600mg K without even considering afternoon snack or dinner.

As far as I have learned it is not a great thing to drink RO/DI water. It's not gonna kill you or have any significant effect in the short term. But the main reason you should not drink it is because the water is completely pure. When the water hits your digestive track, it can pull out many of the nutrients that your body has taken in from all the food you have ate in the last 24 hours. I think it is probably fine though if you keep up on your multiple vitamins. But I would never ever give it to children, it can cause weakened immune systems and lead to some problems later. basically is the same reason why kids that are raised with clean freaks can have weird allergies!

Just my 2 cents

nothing wrong at all with drinking RO/DI water. take cruse ships for eg, hell take or navy. we make distilled water wich is the purest form of water and thats what we had to drink for up to 7 months.

another example.. middle east and especialy dubai and the kingdoms around them depend on RO DI for all there drinking water which comes from a huge plant just outside of dubai where sea water is turned into pure water.. no one is having problems from mineral loss there.

lets even go closer to home.. in victoria my tap water was 11ppm and sometimes down to 8ppm. in calgary is is over 400.. do people who live in Victoria have to take more suplements than people in calgary?

this is all silly talk, wives tales.. ect call it what you will by people who just don't know any better and have to say something to put down a purchase some one made that they don't think they needed. it has popped up several times over the last 10 years and it realy suprises me that people still think that way.

now do I drink DI.. no.. I tap off befor my DI filter for filling my water cooler jugs.. why.... I have 0 ppm out of the ro filter why waist my DI canister thats 50 bucks to replace.... so I use it for fish stuff only. would I drink it.. heck ya.. I did for 2 years till I found out how much it increased the depleation of the DI cartrage....... so for me its a cost thing.

Steve

I may not be a health professional, but i think that saying I don't know any better is a little unfair. I make my living setting up water treatment facilities for many different municipalities in Canada and europe. I personally prefer the taste of RO water, but im just trying to show a point which has been studied in depth for almost 20 years. In Canada this isn't a problem, we have a balanced diet and a temperate climate. But in very hot environments like the UAE, they do supplement there water that has been filtered though there RO plant. Their reasoning is that if you spend all day outside sweating, you re loosing many of the valuable minerals that you need. So to compensate, they add the minerals that they remove, calcium, magnesium, Potassium, Sodium, sulfate, silica and many different trace elements. RO bottled water have all of these minerals added as well. My main question is why spend the money on replacing things that you have removed from the water in the first place? Doesn't really make to waste all that money on a wives tale does it?

actualy they don't.. I have been in the water processing plant a couple times in Dubai, and I have been involved in setting up emergency water supplies after natural desasters.. (which in some cases have become warer sourses for over a year) no remineralization. Oh.. I forgot previously, the city of kamloops is a RO plant also... no remineralization.

I have been working on industral sized RO, Distillers, and Ionization plants for the last 22 years, so I am not just talking out my you know what.. I have seen all kinds of studies and wives tails that were put to rest from studies... and yes it has been studied to death and there are no credable studdies that show a direct health risk from pure water.. only from drinking to much water and they used tap water for that one.

think about it.. you take a mouthfull of water and what happens.. your saliva renders it back to non pure water..

there is some merrit in your sweat thing as this does seplete salts and electrolites, but if you depend on water to replace these something is not right. unless you are an elete athlete who regularly extreamly exerts himself there is going to be no need to suplement your body with water that has minerals and electrolites added. like gator aid. I enjoy the tase of some of the products but thats about it, it realy doesnt do anything for me even when I am playing hockey.

local food in hot climats tends to be heavy in salt and spices, which did tweo things.. in the old days preserved the foods, and also ensured you werte getting your minerals in a extream hot enviorment. pure water is drank with abandon, and especialy now with the bottled water craze.

to answer the second part. people asume ro water is cleaner water which it is and will buy it and pay 10000% more for it than the water out of the tap. now another water bottling company wants a chunk of the pie so they bring out mineralized ro water citing they purafy the water and put back only the good elements, mineralized water is a sales gimic and nothing more. it will let a RO installer sell a add on that you don't need, or it will make people buy a different bottled water because they think it is better for them

Steve

wasn't talking about you at all, I was talking about the markiting departments, and such that years ago started the misconceptions that people started to take as gospel all for the sake of selling different products.. also the people who say.."what did you buy that for.. you know it can hurt you" only because they figure there is no need for them to have one so they have to justify there position with false hoods, since you have one you don't fit into that either.. so not talking about you at all.

Steve

Okay, I have never been to the Dubai plant, but I have been to the Abu dhabi plant. Now as ar as I remember, they do remineralize there water except for floride. I believe they follow the ISO 24000 series. Allot has changed in the past 20 years, and I am going to go with the Information I have learned throughout my schooling and experiences. Now back to the actual discussion in place. I agree with Steve, it think that bypass is to stop you from wasting money on DI cartridges.

The DI essentially completes the purification through ion exchange. The concern with DI is that the resins "could" possibly leach back the salts associated with the H and OH. I suppose this could happen, but then a decent TDS meter would pick that up.
Consuming RO or RO/DI is not a bad thing. As I pointed out above, even if it did adsorb back what was removed, using K as the salt discussed, it is such a miniscule amount that it isn't worth discussing. It isn't going to weaken your bones or any other harmful effect. Any re-mineralization done is probably done on a "just in case" basis, or to quell the consumer lack of confidence based on rumors on the web. For every single article stating one thing, there is an article disputing it.
The purpose of water is to keep you hydrated and to carry the minerals you've consumed throughout your body; not supply the minerals to begin with. The human body has specific nutritional requirements, regardless of regional distribution, and assuming this diet is met for the most part, water is water is water. Reading the chemical composition of the water delivered to my house, I'll stick to the RO stuff. Not DI, because I'm cheap :)

actualy the biggest concern with drinking DI (which should be mentioned) is the possibility of bacterial growth in the resin its self as the chlorine has been stripped out so there is nothing to prevent growth, but on the other hand the water is pure so growth is limited.

also the water can't adsorbe minerals from your body as that is a bilogical process, but the biggest concern which was mentioned by windcoast, is that it can fail to be able to replenish the salt and electrolites lost due to sweat, but as mentioned unless you have some medical condition which prevents your body from adsorbing these from the food you eat it is of little concern for 99.99999999% of the population

Steve

ya we went to the dubai, the abu dhabi and another one out there.. the city water services are strait RO with chlorimene (sp) and from what I remember the bottled water plants make two or more types of water.. the largest ones being strain RO, then there are some remineralized brands, which they charge more for in the stores..

I just got back from the kids hockey and one of the guys there works at the kamloops plant here and there is no remineralization, only disinfectant to prevent bacterial growth.. mind you whats in the old pipes of some niebourhoods :mrgreen:

I know my place in Victoria was between 6ppm and 12ppm depending on the season, but my buddy in glandford was 110ppm same water, I was just a lot closer to the sourse right off newer pipes, he was in an old area of town.

Steve

Cool, no problem, just healthy conversation! :wink:

It also comes directly from the RO unit manufacturers. My directions that came with my unit specifically state to not drink the DI water, only the RO water. So I can't see the manufacturer putting down my purchase I made with them.

My tap water tastes great as is and I don't see the point of wasting all the excess water used to make RO water plus the cost of filters unless the tap water has a bad taste to it. Actually my taste buds do not like the taste of RO water at all, it may be pure water but it has a very strong taste to me, almost like watered down hydrogen peroxide.

ya I found DI has a "dry" taste, as for RO, never noticed any off taste with it. I know when I go back to AB to see my parents and friends I can taste the tap water from the edmonton system and it is different. not used to it anymore so I notice it. when I go to my gramma's, they use a water softener and I can hardly drink it, and they have a tap that bypasses it as my grammpa likes the hard water and it is very different tasting... I don't know if Edmonton uses floride anymore but they did for the 22 years I grew up there.. no to me using RO is more about getting rid of the crap other people think we need. I don't want chlorine copper, led different salts, and other metals in my drinking water so I get rid of it.

Steve

DI is a form of water treatment that is used for making drinking water. now there are different DI resins that basicly are the same. to sell something for human consumption it falls under regulations and such, so by putting a "not for human consumption" sticker on it they avoid a bunch of red tape. like I said befor, I "t" off befor my DI as the resins are expensive, and in the perfect storm of conditions you can get bacteria growth in the DI cartrages. so do I recomend drinking DI water from our home setups? no, is there anything wrong with proper DI water for drinking it.. no.

even when I was looking at starting to make RO/DI and other tank related "stuff" for sale 10 years ago, I was still going to use not for human consumption stickers on the DI and a few other things... why... liability.. I am not there to maintain your system, to clean it regulary and make sure it is run properly. so why would I accept the responcibility by selling you something for your fish tank and also saying ya drink it. is it safe... ya if run properly and maintaned properly it is perfectly safe.. how many people here do weekly maintenance on there RO setups?

Steve

I gave up my concerns about this type of stuff. It's got to the point were breathing is unhealthy and anything that doesn't stay airborne ends up in our food. Don't get me wrong, I like free range meats and organic produce because it usually tastes better but it's far from free of contaminants as some would have us believe. But I guess if we can cut down on the intake of purposely added compounds it's probably for the best.

I am opposite.. all free range means to me is that the producer has no idea what all its eating or where its been.. not desiriable to me..

as for organic.. thats a whole different scam to me.. have you read our laws in canada on "organic" foods? its a good joke.

but I do agree with all the things there finding are caused by contamanants, anything we can do to reduce them is something that some one should be looking at.

Steve

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I think I will leave my RO/DI system as is with a separate output for RO only for drinking water, and the DI output for my reef water. While DI might be just as good for drinking, I see the point of not wasting the DI filter media for drinking water just for a few less TDS.