Anyone Talk Drinking water here?

[Superbee]

I want the best possable Drinking water, i pickup a RO off eBay but having problems with it, what can i do to this Ro to make the best water
right now running a 100Gpd Stage 6 but i took out the Di today gives me dry mouth now testing it with No DI to start
I'm water senitive there are only 2 kinds of bottle water i can drink so far
the rest make me sick..
Any help ask me questions

[troutler]

I just purchased one. This person sells on E-bay but I couldn't bid so he sent me one off of E-bay. I installed it a week or so ago and I find the water very good. Both for myself and for producing saltwater. It too is a 6 stage RO/DI unit. Remember to run off 10 to 15 gallons and afterwards you should back wash for 10 to 15 minutes to get rid of loose stuff in the filters (ie carbon). I guess it's a matter of taste and each of us have our opinion on the quality of water we choose to drink. Good luck with it and perhaps have other people taste the water to give you some feedback on it. Peter

[twizttid1]

i took out the Di today gives me dry mouth

That's gotta be the oxymoron of the month!!!!

I don't know what you're looking for as the "BEST" water...
If you're looking for purity the best is RO/DI....

The RO membrame will provide 95% + pure water... RO/DI gives 99%+ pure water.
So there's not much you can do to improve upon your RO outside of adding your DI back.

There's some controversy around this topic... some claim that RO/DI eats you up from the inside out... stripping your body of minerals (RO/DI water is slightly reactive due to it being so pure) but I think it's complete hogwash...
Sure it may remove a mineral or two... even clear out some of the heavy metals I get from all the fish I eat!!! but take a bite of a steak, or those veggies and you'll be replenishing what's lost 10 fold...
Personally, I really like and favor the taste of RO/DI water... although I've never, not once, experienced drymouth from drinking RO/DI or any kind of water.........


You say you're RO/DI system is new???
Have you run it for 6+ hours after setup to completely flush everything out of it?? Do you have a TDS meter to measure it's performance??
Oh yeah.... you say it's a 6-stage??? Remove the LAST stage of Carbon (not the DI).... it does absoloutely nothing for the water and actually adds TDS to the output....

[SteveOPGH]

I actually have read alot online about drinking RO/DI and distilled water. In the short, it is much better for you, because of all the contaminates in tap water and many bottled 'spring' waters. There are many studies which are pointing tap water (with its high concentrations of arsenic, aluminum, lead and copper) to a direct correlation in people with alzheimers. According to the latest studies, RO/DI water is the best a person can drink.... you get all the minerals you need from the food you eat, especially if you take multivitamins and eat lots of fruits and veggies.

[H20_Science]

I wrote this back in 2002
Maybe this will help :)

In regards to the effects of drinking ro di and them being bad for your health...hmmmm

Yes RO DI water is very light as far as osmotic pressure goes and yes if you were to base your diet solely on RO DI water and nothing else you certaily would one day face a cell wall colapse.

BUT> I think that you would die of starvation before this would happen. Secondly as Randy mentioned if you take one bight of steak you have recaptured the small trace of minerals you have lost from the water.
Now if you go back and do a search on this subject you will see that I have never been an advocate of the mineral loss theory and the only reason I can say that DI water is not good to drink is because it doesnt have any taste.
I will repeat one statement I made in a past thread.
People become comfortable with things they recognise. this applies to the taste of food and drink as well.
The reason we like foods and sodas with sugar in them is because we recognize sugar as a taste we enjoy. This is a substance that over the years of consumption we have learned to identify very easily. Now the same concept applies to water. If we have been drinking mineral water or even hard water for a long time the minerals and hardness become identifyable to our taste and basicly we identify this as the taste of water. This is not the taste of the water it is the taste of the things in the water. The same concept could apply to soda, if you were to all of a sudden remove the sugar from the soda you would no longer enjoy it You would say that it tasted terrible and you could more than likely know it was absent of sugar and blame the bad taste accordingly. Now the problem with the water is that over time you have attributed the taste of the water to just being water and were unable to identify the individual minerals in the water that actually made it taste the way it does. SO when these minerals are removed now the water tastes (SUGAR FREE) and you no longer enjoy it as much.

As stated by DR Arthur L Guyton in 1991 The kidneys control the overall concentrations of the constituants of body fluids. It filters about 180 liters of water per day, over 99% is reabsorbed and 1 to 1.5 liters are eliminated as urine. If the osmolality of the fluid to be filtered by the kidney is lower than normal, nervous and hormonal feedback cause the kidney to excrete more water than normal and maintain the ion concentration in the body at normal values. The opposite is true if the ion concentration of the fluid to be filtered is higher than normal. The kidney homeostatic mechanism keeps the body fluid osmolality normal.The three basic hormonal and nervous control systemstriggered by abnormal ion concentrations are the antidiuretic hormone (ADH) from the pituatary gland, aldosterone from the adrenal glands and thirst because thirst is caused by a 1% rise in osmolality. Because of these kidney control mechanisms, drinking one liter of water would cause the urine output to increase about 9 times after 45 minutes and continue for about two hours. Thus the concentrations of solutes in the blood and other body fluids are quickly maintained by the the kidneythrough homeostasis. these control mechanisms keep the sodium concentration at 7%. Calcium concentration is controlled by parathyroid hormone to + a few percent in the extracellular body fluid. Also, Saliva increases the ion concentrations during water intake. The concentration of sodium chloride in saliva is typically 15 milliequivalents per liter or 877 mg/L that of potassium is about 30 milliequivalents per liter or 1170 mg/L. As low TDS water is consumed, it is combined with saliva which increases the TDS before it reaches the stomach to be absorbed. Each one millileter of saliva can increase the TDS level in eight ounces water consumed by about 10 mg/L. Basicly any changes from normal ion concentration will be corrected in one minute or less because of the fast pace of water through the cell membranes. Sosmall changes in osmolality (ion concentration)
are quicly brought to an equilibrium........

Beyond all of this If you wish to drink DI water I would suggest drinking non color change DI resin. Non color change resin is rated potable and approved for human consumptiom where color change resin is not.

Take care all and happy readin http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

Bryan Crenshaw

[twizttid1]

Beyond all of this If you wish to drink DI water I would suggest drinking non color change DI resin. Non color change resin is rated potable and approved for human consumptiom where color change resin is not.


Is there any real reason for the colour-changing resin being deemed as non-potable???

At the time I thought the only reason it wasn't considered potable is simply because it was not tested hence no rating could be given.

[twizttid1]

It's about control and trust in arguably the most important component of human survival.
Walkerton wasn't an anomoly... it was an event that was bound to happen somewhere... call it laziness, call it what you like... statistically speaking it's bound to happen again somewhere out there... which raises the question "can you really trust your drinking water?"


Aside from Walkerton, which I consider an anomoly, our drinking water from the tap has never been better. Aside from the hint of chlorine, it's better than most bottled water

[QUOTE=Turd Ferguson]
Coke has done an excellent job with Dasani. RO Filtered tap water, then re-mineralized and packaged. Now flouride is added. Evian, take a trip to Evian France and I can almost guarentee it's the last time you drink their spring water.

Again,trust.... did you not here how much of the Dasani water was recalled in Great Britain last year??? An enourmous batch left the 'factory' as completely unfiltered british tap water.... Do you think Coke QC checks caught it??? NO! a schmoe in the public tested it and rang the alarm... or else Coke would have done nothing..



With the exception of removing harmful pathogens, bacteria etc, I don't see the need for RO/DI water. Zenon's membrane technology to make otherwise harmful water into safe water and unless you live in Kashechewan ,it's not an issue, Ontario municipalities product safe drinking water. WAAAAAY too much trust..... especially after mentioning Walkerton.

Fact remains one cannot trust anyone 100% save themselves..... I like living healthy and I will take the necessary precautions to do so... Water is by far the most important component of life.... and should be treated and filtered as such. Can I trust the Gov't??? to a degree... for all I know they took Lake Ontario water, passed it through a Brita filter and said here's your tap water..... and don't get me started on the flouride.

ever hear the saying "you are what you eat"?

[H20_Science]

You hit the nail on the head. It just was not created for the food industry thereby never tested as such.

[twizttid1]

The only safety mechanism is my TDS meter and my filter maintenance... If there's some junk growing/living in the out-flow tubing of the filter I guess I'll be in a little trouble...but then again it's up to me to check that out and keep it clean!

Although it is pretty easy to point the finger at the big bad gov't should something go wrong with your tap water.... I guess I went off cause one of my personal paradigms is 'personal accountability'..... except ofcourse when it's my fault :)

[Superbee]

Thanks for all the input, i did more than a 6 hour 5 gallon flush like the book says, i flushed the system for 3 days every 6 hours, after with the DI it was like i put a cotton ball in the mouth maybe it's just a crappie DI Filter it's Made by Applied Membranes INC, model H-F1035ADIC, so i took it out i'm not using this for Fish Drinking water only, the Omaha Tap water here has 460 TDS after the membrane it's 13-15 TDS with DI it was 9 TDS without the DI it's 10 TDS.
The water seems to taste Just fine now no problems, i like and i'm use to Nestle Bottled Water, it's like PurelyH20 says it's what your use to, it's a change but I will get use to this New Water.

[Superbee]

Another question, what about UV light?
any input?

[ajx22]

Should not be needed for drinking water - unless there is a huge risk of bacteria. The RO membrane will remove most any risks by itself.

See:
http://www.aquariumpros.ca/modules.php?name=Content&file=viewarticle&id=1

What your RO (TFC) Membrane removes:
http://www.aquariumpros.ca/TFC-Removal_Characteristics.pdf

[twizttid1]

Another question, what about UV light?
any input?

I've only seen UV's on homes with cisterns