RO Water System - Is it really necessary for everyone??

Whats a good RO system for me?

My tap water is at..

650ppm @ .68 conversion
.95 EC
pH 8.0 - 8.1

thanks

Any real RO system would work. Just stay away from sediment-only filters like the 'tall boy' or 'little boy'. You shouldn't have to spend more than $120 or so for a system. How many gallons per day do you need? That's the real question.

If you're doing hydro, about any RO system will work. If in soil, you could get away with a Small/Tall Boy.

I have a very similar system to MrFancyPlants. I bought a RO/DI for my saltwater reef tank and use it for my grow. I'm in an area with fluoride and chloramine, chloramine being a lot harder to remove from the water than chlorine, which can be evaporated out. All I know is I don't want to be smoking Ammonia bound to Chlorine so check your municipalities water charts for what they dose into your water. It's probably not as necessary if you have well water, but either way it's not a bad investment. I have a bulkreefsupply.com RO/DI 5 stage chloramine system that auto-tops off into a 32 gallon rubbermaid brute drum. Was definitely worth it for the ~$200 dollars; if you only have chlorine in your water and not chloramine it will cost like ~$130. I get 0 ppm total dissolved solids at the output as long as the DI cartridge is maintained every 250-300 gallons.

Thanks Mr. fancy plants, i ordered my RO/DI 6 stage 150gpd from pure water club as well, it should arrive tomorrow. How should i flush the DI's Individually? any advice you can give to help me avoid problems with my RO unit would be appreciated. I was gonna get a 20 gallon pressurized tank for around 120.00. are you aware of any drawbacks to a pressurized tank? it's more money then a regular tank but i read it will stay bacteria free and hold more water . Thanks meng

I'd start by disconnecting each stage and then turning on the water for a bit. Once the water from the first stage runs clear, turn off the water, hook it to the next stage, flush the next stage, etc. until you've flushed all of the stages before the RO membrane. Once you get the RO membrane hooked up, throw out the first few gallons you get from it. I don't think you need to flush the DI filter.

I think the pressurized tank is fine, except that it might limit the flow rate of water you're able to draw - it might take 30 mins to fill a 20 gallon reservoir through the 1/4" line that's probably coming from the pressurized tank. If that's not an issue then you're fine. For me, I like being able to fill my res while I watch it - in 5 mins or less. I think I'll get that with even a small pump hooked to 1/2" tubing. Also - I don't know if your pressurized tank is like the tank on my kitchen RO unit, but the actual water storage capacity is less than the size of the tank due to the trapped air which provides the pressurization for the tank. I'd guess you'd lose a gallon or so.

sdkid said:

Whats a good RO system for me?

My tap water is at..

650ppm @ .68 conversion
.95 EC
pH 8.0 - 8.1

thanks

Click to expand...

I bought my RO system for 109 dollars shipped, 6 stage works great, but my point is something else for you. I too have 700 PPM 8.0 tap water and I want to warn you to get a cheap water filter to put before the RO system, you need pressure still so consider it in your purchase.

mrFancyPlants said:

Edit: The RO membrane is fine. Turns out that if you screw the connector too tightly onto the carbon filter it will block the flow of water. The check-valve is faulty though.

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Another update - purwaterclub.com finally sent me another check-valve and this one was also bad. This one was a different style - not the usual quick connect fitting but the nylon compression style. The valve worked fine, but the plastic elbow's threads were not properly cut. The first half of the threads were worn off and the last half were too shallow. The guy at purewaterclub had wrapped the whole thing in teflon tape, possibly in an attempt to hide the bad threads. I'm not going back to these guys, and I wouldn't recommend ordering from them unless you know exactly what you want and don't mind this kind of run-around.

I got a Small Boy from Hydrologic. I know it's not RO, but I imagine their RO units are of similar quality. It seems to be well constructed, came in a nice box with instructions and whatnot. I think I'd pay the extra $100 to get my future RO unit from them.

Another update - the auto-shutoff valve from purewaterclub.com failed after 2 weeks of use. I picked up another one from Watts and it's working fine again.

The D.I. filter gives me near-zero ppm which is actually waaaay too clean. I started running into cal-mag deficiencies and had to get a bottle of cal-mag from Botanicare to fix the problem.

Someone on the sub-cool thread mentioned getting a reactive carbon filter for the tall-boy/small-boy which removes chloramines. I think if I were doing this over again I'd look into it since the 4:1 ratio of waste to clean water for an R.O. means a lot of wasted water.