- Today in the Five Minute Saltwater Aquarium Guide,
it's time to make some proper water,
we're talking what is an RODI system?
Why do we all use them?
Is it easy and how do I get it set up and running?
All that's coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hey I'm Ryan, your host at BRStv
and the Five Minute Saltwater Aquarium Guide.
This is a clear, simplified and direct path
to setting up that first successful reef tank.
Today we're starting with a source of fresh water,
the wisest thing I've ever heard in reefing
is maintaining a stunning reef tank full of corals
is just a net result of maintaining
high quality stable water.
Almost every successor challenge in reefing
closely related to stable high quality water parameters.
So that said, the water will never be better
than what you start with and why RODI systems
are so popular.
Reverse osmosis de-ionization, or RODI systems
are just really cool filters that use a series
of sediment, carbon membranes and resins
to filter the water to lab quality, zero TDS water
appropriate for our saltwater aquariums.
Even cooler, you can do it with near zero effort.
You can get RODI water at a fish store
or within five to 10 minutes set up three simple hoses
and anyone can do it at home as well.
The reason why basically every saltwater aquarium owner
I know uses RODI is because our home's tap water
or well water contains all kinds of impurities,
ranging from disinfectants like chlorine,
ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, silica, copper,
or other metals from things like aging pipes
or all kinds of groundwater pollutants,
many of which are not a big deal to humans,
but can be deadly to fish which essentially
breathe the water and invertabrae like corals
who live in it.
So let's set up a system for these two tanks.
The most common beginner RODI systems are simple,
B-res four stage RODI, this will produce zero TDS water,
appropriate for reef tanks for everyone
and completely upgradable down the road
if you ever wanna add additional stages or accessories.
But the four stage, 75 gallon per day
is all that's necessary for your first tank.
With a portable system like this, you have three options:
you can mount it on the wall in your garage, basement
or whatever room that you make water in,
mount it under the sink and store it
or bring it out as needed.
The most common option probably be mounting on the wall
of basements, laundry rooms and garages
where you can make and store water.
So we're gonna use some toggle bolts and mount it
right to the wall, in our case, next to a utility sink.
After it's mounted, there are only three hoses:
a red one is a source water, black one's a waste
and goes down the drain and then the blue one
is your purified RODI water.
To connect the red water supply line,
unscrew your sink's aerator and replace it with
the included diverter valve which comes with
common adaptor rings.
If you have an oddball faucet, your hardware store
will have an adaptor ring for you.
Then pop on the red tube and you're ready to go.
Now when you turn on the cold water
to supply water to the system, the small nub
will divert water to your RO system, similar to that,
many utility sinks have garden hose threads,
in that case the piece screws right on.
You can also pick up a permanent attachment
right under the sink, either from us or a hardware store.
That way it's totally out of the way.
The black water tube can just be slid right down the drain
and then taken out when you're done with it
or permanently attached to your sink's drain line
above the trap.
The blue line just goes into whatever container
you want to store water in.
The most common container being a Rubbermaid Brute
trash can from a big box hardware store.
I strongly suggest picking up a float valve
which we have pretty cheap
and the system will then turn off automatically
when the bin is full.
That's it, turn on the cold water on your faucet,
flush the filters for a few hours the first time
and now you're ready to produce water for your tank.
This system will make 75 gallons a day,
keep in mind that's about 3 gallons an hour,
so it's not super fast but for a 40 gallon tank
like either of these, you can fill it entirely
in half a day or enough water for a water change
in an hour or two.
On a tank this size, most people will change
the sediment filter when it looks dirty,
the carbon block about once a year
and the DI resin when it changes from blue to gold.
Once the gold's about a half inch from the top,
it's time to change it out.
The set up probably took 10 to 15 minutes here
with a few minutes of maintenance a year
and we're producing water that we're confident in.
Pretty easy to see why a vast majority
of long term reefers make their own water,
rather than drive around to get it.
The next logical question of course is
how do I turn fresh water into saltwater?
This is even easier than this
and just some salt mix, but I do have some solid tips
I wish somebody had told me in the beginning.
The entire Five Minute Guide playlist is
always available here, but if you want to know
some of those tips, that's next,
we'll see you there.