EMERGENCY! I dropped the RO/DI unit! Help me folks!

[AMDPhenomX4]

I would suggest opening the drain trap and getting it out. Aswell as getting into the chat room. And by tomorrow your rock will be quite dead.

[prissysmom]

My dad is on his way to help me dget it out of the drain. The pipes are really rusted and stuck.


How long do I have till my rock is dead? Can I recure it and somethings will survive or do I have to throw it all out?


Could I use distilled water if the grocery store has it?

[Kurt_Nelson]

Ok... first thing - RO/DI units don't produce water on demand, so even if you got it up and running right_this_minute it's not going to do your rock any good. So no need to stress about the immediate need for the RO/DI unit - if you didn't have the saltwater ready when you got the rock, you were too late to start with.

The rock isn't junk. If you keep it wrapped up in saltwater soaked towels, a fair amount of bacteria should stay alive for 12-18 hours at least. You may have a little ammonia spike when it finally goes in the water, but probably not much.

If you let the rock dry out, or put fresh/tap water on it, then your bacteria will die off. But it's still not junk... you'll just have to cure it a little. If there's nothing in your tank, you can do that in the tank when you get it filled. I'm guessing that's the case because if you don't have saltwater around, I'm thinking you have an empty tank.

Yeah... you can use distilled water from the store to mix up your salt. You could use tap too in a pinch, just make sure you add a dechlorinator to the tap water per the instructions.

[BigMike75]

Use a small pair of pliers to turn the flush value on and off, till you get a new one.

[prissysmom]

update,

My dad came down but the RO unit worked but we could not if the water was being filtered or not. Dad said it smelled like chlorine.

So first thing in the morning I will buy SW from the LFS. The rocks have dried out so I will have to do a full cycle and hope for the best.

I will call the manufacturer as well and see if the unit can be saved.
I should have had my water ready first. I thought (wrongly) that I could do it at the same time. Hard lesson learned but I won't give up.

Going to sleep now. I'm wiped out!

[BigMike75]

Hang in there and good luck.

[fishmonkey]

yeah, if you have a protien skimmer, then recuring it will be...well not easy, but not difficult either. do you have one?

[Jaybird]

Or.....you could mix up a small batch of saltwater using the tapwater and put the rock in that. Better than leaving it dry out.

[CaptainAhab]

If curing the rock in a tub i always just use tap. I let it cure out, when it's cured I make a small batch of RO saltwater to rinse.. then plop in the main.

Not a big fan of curing in the main display. I figure why would I go to the expense, hassle, time of putting 0 tds water in the display and then put rock in there w/ the intention of creating massive amounts of nitrates.

Same thing if you need somewhere to house the rock... reg tap, rinse w/ RO-salt before introduction.