crud in my humidifier tank

I have use RO water for over two years. It's great for coffee, too. I don't think it is salty- this is water used in a hemodialysis clinic, so salt in the water would be harmful to the patients. I would use distilled water, I just have access to this highly filtered RO water.

I think another wash with soapy water and vinegar rinse would be sufficient as long as you got the crud out.
Maybe use a new toothbrush if you need to do more cleaning out of slime.
Good luck.

Julie wrote:Reverse osmosis water is salty - to the point it kills plants, even if you can't taste it yourself, and I would think it could eventually damage the tank too.

If your RO system is producing salty water, then it's not working right. In fact, RO is a process that's used to de-salinate seawater. RO is a micro filtration process that does not allow the mineral atoms to pass through it. Water from an RO system (that's in good working order) is the next best thing to distilled water.

It's acqua distillata, and I believe you'll find it at a farmacia or large grocery store.

Julie wrote:Reverse osmosis water is salty - to the point it kills plants, even if you can't taste it yourself, and I would think it could eventually damage the tank too.

This is certainly not true of all RO water. It depends on where and how it was treated.

Where we buy ours, it is filtered directly from the pipe, under high pressure, and is not pretreated with salt to soften it, which is the only way it could get salty here, as we live very far from the ocean.

Ours is not salty in the slightest. I would know, as I don't salt my food because of hypertension. I asked the company, no salt in it.

If you use it in your tea kettle, the minerals will dissolve into it and come off the heating element. If you rinse your face with it, after washing up, your skin becomes very soft. It makes excellent tea too, and ice cubes made from it are crystal clear.

I got an ugly, stinky deposit FROM distilled water--are some brands cleaner than others?

chunkyfrog wrote:I got an ugly, stinky deposit FROM distilled water--are some brands cleaner than others?

Odd I have had my old unit and would clean the humidifier very occassionally but never got a residue or smell from the distilled water. Deposits usually are from lime or calcium in the water. When water is boiled and the water vapor is cooled and collected the distilled water doesn't have any minerals or other impurities in it.

Distilled water is distilled water and as long as the supplier is selling "distilled" water you should not have any problems with deposits.