RO or RO/DI for drinking water?

[Reef Pilot]

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.

[Leon71]

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

[FishyFishy!]

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

[clowny]

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

[Reef Pilot]

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?

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Leon71

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

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

[Leon71]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

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.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Leon71

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.

[cwatkins]

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?