Miss Wiggle And Big Ian's First Marine Tank!

[Miss Wiggle]

My ears where burning! I wondered why?


Comming along I see Miss wiggle/Big Ian, I do have some surplus Pulsing Xina as well you can have when your ready just PM me to sort out address.

excellent ta

another thing sorted today, Ian drilled some vent holes in the lid last night, we stuck the metal halide on at 10am this morning, by now it would normally be up to 31/2oC so obviously we've had to be right careful not leaving it on too long. But now it's only at about 28/9 so there's a definate improvement.

 

[SkiFletch]

What you need to do is seal off the RO discharge and run water through the unit for probably 20-30 mins. Usually filters come with shutoff valves for them. If yours doesnt, you could try clamping off the end, or going to the hardware store and buying a shutoff valve... When you do close off the RO discharge, water will flow much faster out the waste line so be prepared

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hmmm.. i`ll have a look for an inline thing, i`m even thinking about a whole new RO unit.

 

[SkiFletch]

Even if you guys have a C clamp or something, you could just clamp the end temporarily if you do in fact find that your RO membrane needs flushing. Dont waste $$ on the part if you're going to just buy a new unit

 

[BigIan]

i`ve just flushed the unit for 30-40 mins, and the flow dosent seem to have changed however we`ve pulled the membrane out and been looking for one to match, are they one size fits all??? cos they all seem to be numbered by flow rates rather than size of membrane as i thought they would be

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah well the physical structure of the membrane determines the flowrate so it makes sense in a way. Over here they're rated in gallons per day (GPD) with 50 and 100GPD being most common (mines a 100). I think the website Chac likes is RO man or somethin like that...

 

[BigIan]

yea we`ve been on RO man, and it lists it in GPD. and it confused me a little.

not exactly sure what gpd ours is but i`m guessing its something like a 30.

the other issue is out of the 2 canisters of the unit only one can be opened....

whats the other one likely to be?

 

[SkiFletch]

The other is a carbon pre-filter

 

[BigIan]

thank ye kind sir, how often if at all does that need replacing?

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

Every 6months or 2000 gallons of products water (Somewhere around that). Whichever comes first, so with most smaller tanks like yours and mine it's every 6months

You should be able to open the other container, mine took one hell of alot of force although it's a completely different model so i don't know sorry

 

[SkiFletch]

Ok here's the deal with carbon pre-filters. MOST RO membranes are TFC (thin film composite) membranes. TFC membranes are unfortunately vulnerable to Chlorine. Chlorine will slowly degrade the membrane faster than if it sees no chlorine. Carbon pre-filters remove chlorine from tapwater thus protecting the membrane. The speed at which your carbon pre-filter depends entirely on the composition of your tapwater. If you have low-chlorine tapwater you can get away with replacing your pre-filter less often than if you have high-chlorine tap. A lot of RO units will come with larger mechanical filtration prior to carbon filtration (common in 5-7 stage units). This type of filter is usually for people with high sediment water in addition to high chlorine water. Having the pre-filters makes the carbon filter do less work and last longer. I wish there was some kind of science to all this but there isnt one thats convenient for us reefers. I'll be honest, my unit is approaching two years old and I've only ever replaced my sediment filters, never my carbon or my RO membrane. And it still churns out 2-3ppm water. Perhaps I'm the exception to the rule, but I havent had to really replace membranes and cartridges often.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

cool, well the TDS meter has arrived today so we'll find out for definate if the problem is the RO tonight. If its not then the bloody tank's going out the window cos I aint got a clue what's wrong!!

However if there is a problem with the RO then we're getting this RO unit with our extra TFF 10% discount it's really not gonna be much more than getting new membrane's and it just saves us a shed load of aggro dealing with old 2nd hand equipment that we don't have half the parts or the instruction books etc for.

 

[BigIan]

and our total disolved solids are....


72ppm!!

hooray!!!!!!!


houston we have a problem

 

[pipatic]

did you run off the first 5gals to flush? from your r.o

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, I doubt a flush would be able to fix a TDS that high. Sounds like your membrane is being comprimised . At least the good news is that your membrane is most likely a big source of your nitrate problems and is preventing you from correcting nitrates with water changes. That TDS meter will get plenty of use in time