Water Quality question

AdamD · Apr 27, 2015

That's a great question. I opened it up 7 years ago with high hopes of assembling it myself. That didn't happen, but I did open all sealed filter and membrane packages in the process.

AdamD · Apr 27, 2015

Ok, ordered new membrane and filters (thanks Ray!). Bought some distilled water at the store for the meantime. I'll post back when the problem has been mended.

Oh and the TDS meter is working fine. Distilled water was 1 ppm.

gonewild · Apr 27, 2015

And all this time you thought you were drinking RO water.....I wonder what you have been drinking????

oke:

Ray · Apr 28, 2015

gonewild said:
Ray, if the membrane is degraded and not working correctly what minerals are in the water? Will there just be a reduced equal amount of the minerals or will the membrane remove some minerals and leave others?

I would guess that the membrane simply becomes perforated over time, so some water simply passes through with nothing rejected.

All of my RO systems ship with the sediment and carbon filters installed, and when I assemble a counter-top-, or grower's system, I install the membrane just before shipping, expecting it will be put into use shortly. The residential systems (with 3-gallon bladder tank and faucet), I have shipped directly from the manufacturer, and as it's going from their warehouse inventory, the membrane is still unopened. That recently led to a problem with another customer:

I now ship 2-years' worth of replacement sediment and carbon filters with the Grower's and Residential systems. A recent purchaser of the latter had a plumber install it for them. He, apparently, thought that the membrane in the package was also a replacement. After a couple of weeks of use, the customer called to say that the RO system was doing nothing to improve the water quality! Lo! and Behold! Installing the membrane helped that a lot.

AdamD · Apr 28, 2015

I also had another question in this category, and I should really know this already. When calculating ppm N, say you started with distilled water, added fert to the rate of 100 ppm. If using K-lite (12.9% N), then would the ppm N at 100 ppm total be roughly 13 ppm N? And if so, then what is in the other 87% if the totals of micros and macros don't equal 100? Inert compounds? I feel dumb asking... Lol.

gonewild · Apr 28, 2015

AdamD said:
I also had another question in this category, and I should really know this already. When calculating ppm N, say you started with distilled water, added fert to the rate of 100 ppm. If using K-lite (12.9% N), then would the ppm N at 100 ppm total be roughly 13 ppm N? And if so, then what is in the other 87% if the totals of micros and macros don't equal 100? Inert compounds? I feel dumb asking... Lol.

Yes.
The other 87% would be all the other nutrients and hidden unlisted salts that are in the fertilizer.
But this is only a rough way to view the contents because some nutrients may not register on the ppm meter, like UREA for example.