water softner

can someone please inform me of water softners?i currently have one in my house and am not quite sure how it works. and how does water softners effect the water chemistry on my reef tank?and im also wanting to invest in a ro/di unit, but am wanting to know how the two would effect the water chemistry together.

 

I think it just removes chlorine from the water and its a very bad thing to add to a reef, Im not positive but i bet someone will chime in!

 

A water softener removes hard minerals from the water. If you've ever done an alkalinity test, that's the stuff it removes, plus a few others. A water softener will help you have better filter life on your RODI, but the softener (when used with an RODI) won't cause you to have a better quality water. RODI is absolutely pure if the unit is maintained properly.

You mean, chlorine is bad to add to a reef, not softened water. A softener doesn't remove chlorine, either; you need a carbon filter for that, which is on any given RODI unit.

 

ok so to give me a better understanding,
water softer alone is better than normal tap water?
water softer+rodi=pure water plus extended filter life?

 

It may only be marginally better than tap, statement two definitely.

 

First off, chlorine is not used much now a days by most municipalities (water co's) mostly what are used are what are known as chlorimines- very different critter then the previous. Chlorine will evaporate in time- chlorimines will not. A water softener does just that softens the water, it removes none of these chlorine bacteria. However, you might want to contact your water softner co. and see if they have a whole house R/O-Di unit, most of them do, and it would be the best way to go- they even offer reef tank storage units- sometimes at no additional charge. Not to mention- you will never need to buy bottled water again.

Best of luck to ya.

 

No.
Chlorine is still the residual disinfectant of choice, only about 25-30% of the utilities use chloramines which is still chlorine but with ammonia added in for stability. Free chlorine is still by far the most popular disinfectant.

A water softener is an ion exchange device, it exchanges sodium or potassium for calcium and magnesium which is what causes water hardness and scaling of plumbing fixtures and pipes. A softener contains several cubif feet of resin much like a DI filter but for a different purpose.

It is good to have a softener in front of a RO membrane as it does much of the work for the RO and makes it work better and last longer. In fact all the major membrane manufacturers recommend softened water and if it comes down to it will not back a warranty if the water was not softened or within their specified ranges.

There is no such thing as chlorine bacteria? Yes chlorine can dissipate in time, especially if you aerate the water, send it through a carbon filter or add sodium thiosulfate or ascorbic acid/vitamin C to remove it. Chloramines are a little tougher as the carbon can remove the chlorine portion but the ammonia remains and you need the DI resin to remove the ammonia as RO by itself is not entirely effective on all forms of ammonia including nitrates and nitrites. You want RO/DI not just RO.

You may find a whole house RO but it would be very expensive and I doubt you will find a whole house RO/DI. Really you don't need either since why would you treat water for flushing toilets or doing laundry with RO or RO/DI? Get a 75 GPD RO/DI which you can use for your reef systems and also use the RO portion for drinking water and other uses like cooking and pet watering.

Softened water is better for your plumbing and will lower soap consumption but may not be as healthy since it contains elevated levels of sodium or potassium whichever your unit uses to regenerate the resin.
Softened water is excellent for RO/DI pretreatment.

 

Man knows his stuff, huh!?

 

Water and wastewater treatment has been my profession for over 35 years. I train plant operators all over the southwest.

 

Yes he does his statement is 100% correct. Another problem with whole house RO's (they do have them) is that they can actually be worse on the households plumbing. Clean water dissolves better than dirty water (like the copper in your pipes) making pinholes which means leaks for short. I live in west texas where the water will literally scale up a faucet and make it leak within 6 months (I've even seen blown hot water heaters), so we all have softeners here.

Long story short AZDesertRat is entirely correct in his statements. But also get the softener checked before you use it. I have seen people get sick from dirty RO's and softeners. After all the water quality classes I had to go through to get liscensed I'm supprised I still drink water at all.

Hope this helps.