Soft Water for RO Rinse

[concord maple]

Is it OK to use soft water from a water softener that uses salt if I were to need additional water for rinsing and/or washing during the season. Softners work by removing calcium, magnesium, and iron depending on the salt used but Sodium ions replace these items and are present in the soft water. Are these sodium ions OK for the membranes?

[maple flats]

I never ran out of permeate inseason. I've only ever needed to supplement my permeate as I first get ready fror the season. Then I draw municiple water, which in my case is from a large open resourvois and has been well filtered, but then they add chlorine. When I use it, I haul a 275 gal IBC tote full, pump it into my permeate tank then I let it set for 3 dys to get rid of most of the chlorine. Then I do the opening for the season proceedure using it in my RO. . Once The season is underway I clean the RO using a blend of what's left from the initial municiple water and my permeate water. I've always had a tank large enough that a cleaning never uses it up. I just run the proceedure by the clock, not until the permeate is gone.
As a general rule you should have storage for 2x what the RO does an hour. In my case, that's 500 gal storage. I'll be using an 850 gal tank for the permeate storage this coming season. Back when I had my 3x8 evaporator, my permeate tank was a 1000 gal tank, I sold that as I cut back in size of my operation, but both then and now, I have and had an RO rated at 250 gph. Thus I need at least 500 gal for permeate storage, I'll have 850.
My potential bottle neck will be sap storage, for 200 min to 500 max (if I tap on the neighbor with permission) I'll only have a 300 gal and a 200 gal storage tank plus a 100 gal head tank. But being retired it shoul pose no problem, I can boil anytime I have enough sap to make enough concentrate.
If your RO does 20 gph, you need 40 gal storage and so forth.

[NoblesvilleIN]

I don't have a scientific answer for you. I use well water that has gone thru our water softener (salt based) when I am short of permeate (first flush of the season, end of season cleaning). I have an RB-5, so a very small RO user. I got 4 years out of my first membrane (at about 100 gallons of sap/year) and will replace it for next year. The softened well water did not appear to have harmed the membrane.

[maple flats]

What membranes do yopu have? I suggest you ask who made to membranes for the best answer.

[Mean_Oscar]

If you just want to clean up your membranes, why couldn't you put a tsp of baking soda in city water to turn all the loose chlorine into salt? I did that once with RO soap / lye and there were no problems.

[Mean_Oscar]

I am a sorghum grower / maker too and recently explored using household bleach to suppress weeds just before planting. My thinking (never actually tried it) was that the bleach ultimately decomposed to salt (NaCl) and the salt just washed down and out with ground water. Then I read another article saying you get dioxins doing that. So for the time being, I will go back to well water when out of permeate.