High TDS after carbon blocks (before membrane) normal?

[Acrofiend]

Hi reefers I replaced all my filters, membrane and added another stage of carbon to my 6 stage spectrapure and now my TDS is reading higher after the carbon blocks. Is this normal for it to be 100 tds higher? The blocks have been flushed for a couple hours.

 

[Acrofiend]

@SpectraPureInc

 

[Water Dog]

How did you flush your prefilters? When replacing prefilters, it’s a good practice to flush each prefilter individually, starting with the one furthest “upstream”. Detach the line from the last prefilter canister that goes into the RO membrane. You don’t want this flushed water to touch the membrane. Start with the sediment filter and run it for a few minutes then add the next in line carbon block and do the same. If you have another carbon block, do it again. What you’re doing is flushing each prefilter down stream to get rid of manufacturing dust and carbon fines. Once flushed, reattach the line going to to RO membrane.

Could bump in TDS that you‘re seeing carbon fines from the newly installed carbon blocks?

 

[Acrofiend]

Yes I flushed each block separately for 15 minutes each. I’ve never had this problem. I’m guessing I have to flush them for longer?

 

[Water Dog]

Hmmmm... weird. I’ve never seen that with properly flushed prefilters.

 

[TriggerFinger]

Did you check that all the filters are seated correctly and water isn’t bypassing the filter somehow?

 

[Acrofiend]

I have .2 sediment - .5 carbon - 1 micron chlorplus - 1 micron chlorplus - membrane.

 

[Acrofiend]

Did you check that all the filters are seated correctly and water isn’t bypassing the filter somehow?

I just removed all the filters and everything was seated correctly.

 

[LoneStarReef]

I just installed the BRS 5 micron sediment filter, 5 Tmicron carbon block and 1 micron carbon block and it has taken me HOURS for the TDS to go down below 10. Been flushing the system for probably 4 hours now. Not sure why it is taking so long. Just flushing these 3 filters now and waiting to hook up the DI portion until the TDS goes down. The TDS is now higher coming out of the filters (11) than going in from my water supply (3).

 

[Acrofiend]

Hmmmm... weird. I’ve never seen that with properly flushed prefilters.

Definitely frustrating. Too bad I threw away all my old filters too.

 

[Acrofiend]

Ok I shook the unit, rearranged the TDS probes and that seemed to have temporarily fixed it. It occasionally jumps back up to 450 tds but shaking the unit brings it back down to 350. I also should’ve mentioned I installed a booster pump before replacing all the filters that pushed the pressure to 100 psi. So I’m thinking that might’ve caused these issues. I’m planning on contacting spectrapure Monday to see if they can diagnose the real problem.

 

[TriggerFinger]

100 psi is too much I think. Do you think it’s pushing the water too hard, not allowing contact time with the filters? For reference, my psi into my unit is 70-80 without a booster pump.

 

[Water Dog]

Try putting the booster pump between the prefilters and the RO membrane.