Water Softeners and Air Filtration Systems - Strange precipitate after installing under sink RO filter
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sirius9086
05-20-06, 10:34 AM
I just installed a RO under sink filter, and I've let the water out of the tank 3 times already. On the fourth fill, I cooked the water but noticed a large amount of strange white precipitate (like small semi-white crystals) after boiling. It is not there when uncooked, and water directly from tap doesn't show this even after cooking...I just added a alkali filter to attone for the slight acidity in my water, could this be what's causing the white precipitate?
OO7
07-01-06, 07:59 PM
I just installed a RO under sink filter, and I've let the water out of the tank 3 times already. On the fourth fill, I cooked the water but noticed a large amount of strange white precipitate (like small semi-white crystals) after boiling. It is not there when uncooked, and water directly from tap doesn't show this even after cooking...I just added a alkali filter to attone for the slight acidity in my water, could this be what's causing the white precipitate?
If the alkali filter does not have any dosing adjustments it could be letting crystal forming or flake forming media through to faucet after the RO. The media in the alkali filter will probably be synthetic dolomitic limestone which adds full hardness to the water unless piped with a bypass tube arrangement to tone the re-mineralising right down and still give reasonable pH adjustment.
Get some litmus pH papers and test for acid/alkali for the direct RO water and see if it is above a pH of 5 or 6. Test for alkalinity of current water after alkali filter and check if below 8 or 9. After adjustment the alkalinity should be nearer 7 and the flakes/crystals in your cooking pots should not show up.
If you installed the RO yourself, make sure the concentrate / drain pipe is not mixed up with the pipe linked to the tee fitting off to the tank and final carbon polishing filter. Some RO's like Flomax which are A1 quality just fail to make these last few connections and they can get mixed up, causing the effluent / concentrate to feed into your faucet and the pure stuff sent down the drain.
If the alkali filter does not have any dosing adjustments it could be letting crystal forming or flake forming media through to faucet after the RO. The media in the alkali filter will probably be synthetic dolomitic limestone which adds full hardness to the water unless piped with a bypass tube arrangement to tone the re-mineralising right down and still give reasonable pH adjustment.
Get some litmus pH papers and test for acid/alkali for the direct RO water and see if it is above a pH of 5 or 6. Test for alkalinity of current water after alkali filter and check if below 8 or 9. After adjustment the alkalinity should be nearer 7 and the flakes/crystals in your cooking pots should not show up.
If you installed the RO yourself, make sure the concentrate / drain pipe is not mixed up with the pipe linked to the tee fitting off to the tank and final carbon polishing filter. Some RO's like Flomax which are A1 quality just fail to make these last few connections and they can get mixed up, causing the effluent / concentrate to feed into your faucet and the pure stuff sent down the drain.
reddart
10-30-06, 10:49 AM
Sounds like calcium carbonate. From the alkali filter?