RO/DI Water Safe To Use

[mike31154]

Just thinking out loud here and not really recommending anything in particular, but don't we strip everything out of the water for our tanks and then rely on the salt mix to provide everything the inhabitants need? Would that not be the same scenario with adding baby formula to absolutely pure water?

I've also read the warnings about DI stripping your body of trace elements etc, but never from any real scientific perspective, always some health 'expert' or something. I don't drink DI personally, but since I have the RODI system now, I use RO water for coffee, tea, some cooking and general purpose drinking water. I figure by adding gatorade to one of my water bottles for soccer games, I'm getting back some of the electrolyte lost through perspiration. I tend to side with the argument that you wouldn't be able to drink sufficient pure water to cause any ill effects, provided you have a good diet otherwise. I don't use DI since the resin is costly, my RO gets 0 TDS most of the time anyhow. I think one of the other reasons people don't tend to drink DI is because it has absolutely no taste whatsoever. That's easily remedied by adding a mix of your preference. I've been making my own carbonated water in 2 liter pop bottles using my CO2 cylinder. I don't run a kalk reactor, just use the CO2 for making fizzy water.

[ScubaSteve]

RO would be good (removes bromine, chlorine, etc) but RODI would be too aggressive for a child, heck even an adult. I know some people do drink RODI but it's not actually safe as it strips salts from your body. There have actually been cases of people dying from drinking only RODI in the summer time when their bodies are already stressed for minerals. If you want me to go into the reason why RODI does this I can but I'll save you the science mumbojumbo for now. In big RODI systems for drinking water they actually, by law, have to add minerals back into the water for it to be safe. RO doesn't get to as low concentrations so it's not as much as a worry.

I have a business that makes water desalination tech and I love to talk about this stuff, so feel free to ask questions.

[RezReef]

Thank you all for your helpful information...