Anyone treat RO water before mixing?

[LiquidLunch]

I recently ran my skimmer intake hose outside to help raise my pH since it is located in the basement. It helped a bit and I also realized that my auto top-off water couldn't be helping my less than 8.3 pH situation. I have been topping off with < 7 pH water with little or no buffers in it. I have a SpectraPure RO/DI system and know my water is pretty "clean". I have since got my top off water >8 pH and was wondering if you guys do the same? I have read many articles stating that salt co's expect their salt to be mixed with "regular" water and not stripped water like most of us use. Should I not worry about it and get a life?

[Hardhead Cat]

I don't treat my top off RO/DI water at all, it is around 7.0 pH, but even though I use a lot of it during the two weeks between WCs my pH still stays pretty high. Do you run carbon? I found out that a little carbon in a reactor or the sump helps a LOT towards stabilizing pH. Just a thought!

HHC

[LiquidLunch]

I recently started running a reactor with Purigen in it.

[Doug1]

Buffering the RO for top off might not be bad if you dont use Kalk to replace evaporation. Shouldnt do it before mixing up new salt water tho, after mixing let it circulate heated to temp with areation then test the mix for lak,calcium, pH after 24 hrs then adjust if need be

[Fly Guy]

Originally Posted by LiquidLunch

Should I not worry about it and get a life?

If only I could count the things in life that i neglect that are more important than some of the stupid little things i worry about in concern to my reefs,

[Nyles]

My top off is buffered to 8.2 ph with baking soda (due to calcium reactor and no kalk dripping anymore)

water changes I just use salt and check ph. Seems to help keep my alk and ph more stable.

[Junkzoo]

FWIW: I add a lil bit of Kent "RO right" or whatever it's called, to the barrel for the reef tank water, and nothing added for the FO barrel,,,just cuz, not sure if it does any good, and have not done a in -depth test of if it's worth it,, prob just of of those, "makes me feel better about doing it" i quess,,,

[tdwyatt]

heh, just put a tablespoon of kalk in 55 ga of water, the scarcity of CO2 in the water that is driving the pH down will be converted to CO3 or to H3CO3 (this molecule actually does not exist in anypace but chemical equtions, but the concept is the important part), and its low solubility will treat more than a few gallons of the RO/DI with benefit to the tank. The excess that might end up in yur dislay will be converted by dissolved CO2 in the tank to alkalinity and calcium ions. I personally do not treat any water this way, and would be unlikely to be persuaded to do so for ASW manufacture, but for top off, it couldn't hurt, it might actually benefit, and it is CHEAP!


HTH

[dobejazz]

Originally Posted by tdwyatt

heh, just put a tablespoon of kalk in 55 ga of water, the scarcity of CO2 in the water that is driving the pH down will be converted to CO3 or to H3CO3 (this molecule actually does not exist in anypace but chemical equtions, but the concept is the important part), and its low solubility will treat more than a few gallons of the RO/DI with benefit to the tank. The excess that might end up in yur dislay will be converted by dissolved CO2 in the tank to alkalinity and calcium ions. I personally do not treat any water this way, and would be unlikely to be persuaded to do so for ASW manufacture, but for top off, it couldn't hurt, it might actually benefit, and it is CHEAP!


HTH

Can you over do it Tom ? I have a big garbage can for RO/DI storage not sure how many gallons we usually fill it to. I know PH is Low in all tanks so would this help using kalk in the top off?

[tdwyatt]

Nope, no worse than using kalk for top off, and you dont have to worry about an excess of alkalinity taking down your Ca levels, because Kalk is already a balanced supplement. You could actually use this as your top off mechanism using saturated kalkwasser if you can put it into the tank without bolusing too much at once. An IV pump set to run in the kalk soution at the rate of evaporation would be ideal, but that can change, and most folks do not have access to an IVAC...

You could run straight saturated kalkwasser into the tank using a float switch connected to a Aquamedic peristaltic pump switched so that it only delivers when the sump level drops. It is slow enough to avoid the bolusing of the kalk into the system so long as the drip is directed into a high-flow area of the sump, and can be connected to a cutoff float switch should the pump "on" switch get stuck or delivery rate stay on ( )due to a hitchhiking snail on the primary float switch.


This is much better than using bicarb in the top off water (no issues with dropping calcium, no Na+ ions to deal with), and the pH of the top off really is not the major issue folks want to make it out to be anyway. Plain water has a pH of 7.0, this represents a very low number of balanced protons and hydroxyl ions, not a solution loaded with buffers intended to prevent pH changes or full of acids or bases that ionize in water to crete the pH dictated by their pKa. The number of hydroxyl and hydrogen ions in pure water is so low that we speak of them in terms of 1x10^-7 , or 0.0000001 ions of each. These are the dissociation products of water at neutral value; pure water, no excess substances. This will have little IF ANY effect on the pH of pure water, nothing like the shift in ionization that results from the presence of even miniscule amounts of carbonate (or stronger ionizing agents) in the water. Here we dwell on the insignificant when we talk about this in RO/DI or istililed waters. It is more important that we have pure water than it is to worry about the pH: without other substances in the water to ionize and provide their own effects on the rate of ionization, we really have no worries about the water acting as a driver of pH for the aquarium's water column. Once in the tank, the buffering of the water column and the pCO2 content of the water are THE driving forces of systemic pH for your sw aquarium. The pH of pure water as top off is of little consequence in such a system.


HTH

[dobejazz]

Originally Posted by tdwyatt

Nope, no worse than using kalk for top off, and you dont have to worry about an excess of alkalinity taking down your Ca levels, because Kalk is already a balanced supplement. You could actually use this as your top off mechanism using saturated kalkwasser if you can put it into the tank without bolusing too much at once. An IV pump set to run in the kalk soution at the rate of evaporation would be ideal, but that can change, and most folks do not have access to an IVAC...

You could run straight saturated kalkwasser into the tank using a float switch connected to a Aquamedic peristaltic pump switched so that it only delivers when the sump level drops. It is slow enough to avoid the bolusing of the kalk into the system so long as the drip is directed into a high-flow area of the sump, and can be connected to a cutoff float switch should the pump "on" switch get stuck or delivery rate stay on ( )due to a hitchhiking snail on the primary float switch.

Does this only work for auto top offs?
I don't have any way of auto top off on the nano's I top them off by hand every day George tops off the sump for the 95 2x a day