Water Chemistry Help - Filter knowledge needed

Alright here is my dilemma....

I live in Phoenix, Arizona. Our water here sucks donkey balls. Today I received back my water report from Ward Labs and was not happy with the results.

NA-299ppm, Ca-60ppm, Mg-19ppm, Sulfate-27ppm, Cl-434ppm

As you can see the water here has very high amounts of Chloride(Cl-) and Sodium(Na).

My current filtration device I am using is a 0.5 micron carbon filter.

My question that I have is what are my options to correct these levels?

I wish to get as close as I can to 0's across the board. If I was to add on a deionized water filter, would this make much of a difference? I mean over 400ppm Cl- and 300ppm of Na is insane!

Yes, you do have a dilemma there. RO is about the only way out for you. A new, properly set up RO system should reject all but a percent or 2 of those ions. At 99% rejection you would have 3 mg/L sodium, 0.6 mg/L Ca and 4.34 mg/L Cl. Even as it's performance degrades you would be in fair shape. At 95% rejection sodium would still be tolerable at 15 mg/L and chloride at 21.

What's almost worse is the variability. It looks like today you're getting a blend of mostly Salt River water. Depending on your location, time of year, recent rainfall, and demand in your city you could almost flip the sulfate and chloride numbers. Sodium can be very low to @$%!!!! like you see there. The alkalinity also varies pretty wildly.

I have never even considered using tap water. Using a 75 GPD Dow FilmTec membrane (highly recommended!) at about 65 psi I can get the TDS down from 450-500 ppm to 4-5 ppm to an atmospheric holding tank. You do not need a DI stage at the end, that last 1-2% is insignificant.

I don't brew in the summer, but a 'cool' side effect of 100*+ tap water is you'll be making 110 GPD with that 75 GPD membrane.

I would also recommend a water softener if you don't already have one. The calcium can spike even higher than that, your membrane will thank you.

Thanks for the reply guys! I will definitely look into each of your recommendations! I have been doing a lot of shopping around online for a new RO filter. The one I have now is garage! Next batch though will just have to be all distilled water and i'll just build up my profile till I order a new filter.

Your carbon filter won't really do much for your water. I agree that an RO would be the way to go. Only a few of our home brew/brewery customers opt for an RODI - many more go with RO.

Russ

Buckeye_Hydro said:

Your carbon filter won't really do much for your water. I agree that an RO would be the way to go. Only a few of our home brew/brewery customers opt for an RODI - many more go with RO.

Russ

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Do you have any recommendations on particular filter?

Sure - would be best if you called in so we can go over some details.

Russ
513-312-2343

I have used several different types of bottled water and I really like Nestle Pure Life. I live in Cave Creek and have never seriously considered using tap water.

GotPushrods said:

I would also recommend a water softener if you don't already have one. The calcium can spike even higher than that, your membrane will thank you.

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Whether you need a softener or not depends on the alkalinity of the water and its pH as well as its hardness. You are pretty close to the edge. If pH is below 7 you are in t pHpretty good shape as a recovery level of 63% would be required to cause saturation at th. Most of the home supply store units are set for recovery of < 20% for this reason.

This water is saturated (WRT CaCO3) at pH 7.4 so that should the pH rise to or above that level you could expect deposition on your membrane. Water softening or lowering of feed pH are both good ways to prevent this.