New RO unit

[jamiehill]

I just got my RO unit from AquaSafe today and will be hooking it up when I get home tonight. Up until now I have been using tap water and am just curious as to how I should proceed from here out.

Should I do a number of weekly large water changes over the next few weeks, or should I just stick with about 25% every 2-3 weeks like I have been doing? I want to get the tap water out, but I also don't want to cause unnecessary stress on the fish.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Jamie

 

[LakeEd]

I would suggest a 25% water change weekly, and probably do that for the next month or so. Shouldn't be enough to shock anyone. Your tank is up and running now... with what ever water you've been using. Now you know you'll be doing much better for everything in your tank, which should start giving you the rewards for the expense of your purchase.

 

[rhidien]

yup, it's generally not a good idea to do anything in this hobby to quickly, but that's part of the fun, testing your patients!

 

[bradreef]

25% weekly is fine. The real thing is not to do more than 25% at once because of the changes it could cause. Ph, calcium, alk, nitrates. sudden changes can be stressfull. you could do it every couple of days if you really wanted.

 

[wrightme43]

Just for the other side view point. This is mine. If I mix and age fresh seawater, heat it to the same temp, and make sure the salinity is the same, I can do a 100% water change. With no ill effects on anything. I believe if I am improving water quality, I cant go wrong. I have done many 36 gallon water changes on my 75 with no ill effects. I did a 104 gallon water change on a 150, and reused the rest when removing all the rock and corals, sand and everything. No problems, actually the corals seemed to love it. However I do all kinds of strange things. They work for me. Steve

 

[jamiehill]

Just for the other side view point. This is mine. If I mix and age fresh seawater, heat it to the same temp, and make sure the salinity is the same, I can do a 100% water change. With no ill effects on anything. I believe if I am improving water quality, I cant go wrong. I have done many 36 gallon water changes on my 75 with no ill effects. I did a 104 gallon water change on a 150, and reused the rest when removing all the rock and corals, sand and everything. No problems, actually the corals seemed to love it. However I do all kinds of strange things. They work for me. Steve

Hi Steve,

A while back you posted pictures of what your RO unit looks like hooked up. Could you send me a link to that pic? I am having problems with my setup and want to make sure that everything is hooked up right. I am getting about 50psi into the unit and 40 psi after the membrane, but there is almost no water coming out. Also, my TDS is around 35 out of the tap, but the first sample from my RO unit was in the 500s.

Jamie

 

[mattseattle]

hey jamie,

did you flush the pre-filter, carbon filters before hooking up the membrane? flush those 3 filters for about 15 minutes then hook up the membrane and flush that for about 15 - 20 minutes to get the preservative off the membrane. check the TDS and it should be 0 once all the preservative is off. after that you can hook up the DI cartridge and you are good to go.

there is a 6th stage filter that is for taste. don't use that.....you'll probably end up with high TDS using that.

also with 50 psi you are going to get a trickle out of the clean water line and a steady stream out the waste water.

 

[Tangee]

Jamie,
Aquasafe also has a website with diagrams. We found this out recently when we moved ours from the kitchen to the garage after one too many floods
Susie