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RO/DI. Need selection help

well, I am slowly upgrading my whole setup and I think it is time to stop lugging 5x5g jugs every month. Right now I have a 40g and eventually, it will be upgraded to ~100g + sump, so I don't need a big RO setup (maybe a 75gpd is enough).

There are tons of units out there. I know 2 brands are sponsors and one is readily available without a GB.

Any thoughts/experiences/horrorstories etc with what I should be looking for/avoiding? At this point, I am very much an amateur in terms of what I know on RO/DI systems.
 
Thanks for asking Tony. I've been putting this off for a while and look forward to what people say. I'd imagine that the quality of everyones tap water plays a big part thought too... fwiw
 
Just losely extrapolating from other non related equipment, and the little I know on RO/DI, I would imaging replies along the lines of:
x has crappy components that will fail (it might be a simple as a proprietary fitting which is crap but the unit is good otherwise),
odd shaped or proprietary cartridges on X unit,
X unit has a bad rejection ratio,
You want to get at least an X stage unit consisting of ____,
stay away from/get X Membranes/carbon blocks/resin,
TDS meters are/aren't a must etc etc.
 
I personally don't think the actual unit itself makes a difference but the filters do. I get mine from the filter guys. Do some research and see what antibacterial your city uses. If it's chloramine and not chlorine then I would get a 5 stage filter, carbon block, carbon block, micron filter, RO membrane, DI chamber.

It's also very useful to get an auto-shutoff kit so you don't have to worry about floods. I have mine hooked to a garbage can with a float valve installed.

Having a flush kit is also recommended. It will allow you flush the RO membrane to prolong the life of the membrane.

I have an inline TDS meter which monitors the water going out of the RO and after the DI. I know they may not be very accurate but it is good for reference. I use it to see if my filters need to be changed but usually do it before anything registers.

Having a pressure gage helps too. This can tell you if you need to change any filters. Sunnyvale uses chloramine so the carbon filters get clogged real fast and the back pressure causes the pressure gage reading to drop significantly indicating a need for new filters. Also if the pressure reading is too low you won't get the same efficiency and the unit may not worl properly.
 
I bought mine off of melevesreef.com from mark, and I bought a 2 sensor tds meter to moniter input water conditions and out put. The RO/DI unit was 179 and the meter was 25. So far it has worked great for me. It is a 100gpd unit.
I like having a tds meter because I can see the condition of the water and know when it is time to change the filters.
So far I have made 400-500 gallons and my output is at 0tds.
 
In my experience the cheaper costing ones you can get on ebay probably are just as good as a "sponsor"/"brand name" unit. They all work the same way, use more or less the same filters, same membrane, same deionizing resin. I've seen some systems costing a couple hundred bucks, which makes no sense, there aren't that many extras that make it reasonable to be charging that much. Now that being said I don't know specifically what some of our sponsors charge, but IMO there's no reason to wait for a group buy on something like this, when you can get units on ebay in the 100 range.

Ok that rant out of the way here's a review on some nice extras to have.
Unit - obvious duh, doesn't matter all use membranes from the same couple companies, filmtec and dow (I think), 75GPD is a good unit to use, it has higher rejection rates than the 100GPD (or did a couple years ago, I'm unsure if the technology has changed however). But like I said, eBay a hundred bucks or so, or go the sponsor route, but don't pay too much for junk you don't need or is a downright lie (zero-rejection unit)

Pre-filters, you'll probably be good with 5 micron size for everything, 1 sediment 2 carbon blocks, if you have a lot of gunk in your water you might want to get another chamber and throw a 1 micron sediment filter inbetween to catch stuff. Your carbon blocks you want to use for chemical absorption not particulate matter catching (although they will do that as well).

IMO don't waste your money on "chlorine guzzler" type filters, many will tell you they're really easy to get clogged then all that extra money is wasted, as to capacity the smallest ones are 6000 gallons, now before you think you need the more expensive ones with more capacity I did a little math.
If I change 30g every week, with a 4:1 reject ratio, that's 150 gallons of watter every week, which translates to 40 weeks worth of water changes, now most people say to change them out every 6 months (as a safety) so the smallest capacity (and ironically cheapest) will actually be the best price value.

Pressure gauges- Not necessary, but VERY handy, and a cheap add-on. Put one at the input to the whole system, and one on the output of the pre-filters. If both read the same, all is good, if the one after the prefilter has dropped, then it says you're getting/have a clog somewhere, it might be time to change your pre-filters. Plus if you get a clog too early, it allows you to figure out which filter has it, simply remove one at a time until the pressure goes back to being equal. If you have your own gauges, the John Guest fittings most likely will cost you more than the gauges to hook them up :D

Booster Pump Not necessary, but oh christ this is a lovely lovely add-on. My water is 40psi at the pump, pretty much at the minimum for it to work, plus less production, more waste. With a booster pump it cranks it up to 70psi! Now if you already have high pressure probably a waste of money, but if you have mediocre pressure, or hell want to increase it even more a nice add-on, probably one of the more expensive ones though. However the price on these has dropped considerably lately, I got mine with a solenoid + pressure valve (which I replaced with a floatswitch) for around $90 (I think), and that has been worth every penny, but that's because I had crappy water pressure to start with (live on a hill, where the water plant is down hill from me).

Deionizing Add-on, I list this separately because there are many systems with out this, and there are a couple options. Typically an all-in-one unit comes with a little DI chamber, which is fine, but for serious production you'll want at least two said chambers, or a separate canister with DI resin.

In line TDS, again not necessary, but very useful in telling when your resin is exhausted. Sure they have color changing resins, but to me it's really hard to tell, simply because two different resins always separate in the chamber from the get go, so I can't remember which is supposed to be what color. A hand held one can work too, but there's always some residual crud in my container (garbage can), which can throw off the value a bit, and that little tds isn't going to kill a tank, so the reason for the meter is to tell me when the resin is exhausted.

Hose Do you have a backyard of any sort? Any trees on your property? Run a long length of 1/4" hose from the waste water output to your yard (trees are nice because they suck up more water than you think). Hey you paid for that water, why throw it back down the drain, it's probably cleaner than the water from your faucet! And never have to water your yard again. However don't get to creative with drip lines and the like (put nothing that physically restricts the flow), leave the ends open, however teeing off to multiple parts of the yard should be fine.

WHEW, ok long winded advice there, but I'm proctoring a test now, so I have nothing else to do.
 
I purchased my 100gpd from Melevsreef as well. It's a good unit - I reckon pretty much the outer housings for most are roughly the same. I think that most filter companies make the most money on the actual filter replacement cartridges.

One of the sponsors also sells on Ebay as well so do not discount all Ebay units are bad or are cheap.
 
sfsuphysics, if your resins are separating, you arent packing that cartridge tight enough! atleast that i experienced. and if packing it too tightly is wrong, someone tell me!!
 
Oh another option I forgot to mention, clear housings for your prefilters. A bit of a pricy upgrade ($10-$20 EACH), but you can see as your sediment filter goes from white, to chamomile tea, to black coffee colored (probably waiting too long if it turns this color)
 
Tony, seems a tad pricy. Yeah it's nice for 150gpd but that is really overkill IMO on a tank the size you're going to be running. Hard to add up all the "extras" to see if it really adds up, but they spend an awfully lot of effort to let you know how EXTREME it is, which would worry me off the bat :D Plus they mention the microsize of the carbon filter to get chloramines removed, carbon doesn't physically block chloramines, it absorbs them, so the contact time is more important than size.

Test your water pressure at your place first, that should dictate if you want to spend money on something like this, doesn't have a booster pump so if you have low pressure this might not work as advertised. Also see the price of the filters to replace them, you might find out the upkeep of this unit with filter replacement will hurt a lot more in the long run than the initial cost.

I'm fairly handy with plumbing, so for me I wouldn't get something that crazy with everything all nice. But then again my RO/DI unit looks like a big squiggly octopus mess of hoses :D
 
Air Water Ice has great customer service and makes a quality product.

I bought this model about 2.5 years ago. It came with a free TDS meter.

http://www.airwaterice.com/c=wQLvE2LTzEYOUEND7WvczFZns/product/1TYPHOONIII/TYPHOON_III_AQUARIUM_RO_DI_75_or_100_GPD.html

Amazingly, I have never had to change a single filter. The output is still 000. Where I live, the tap water is pretty low in TDS to begin with.

Best of luck,

Roy
 
[quote author=Gomer link=topic=4033.msg48097#msg48097 date=1215105309]
Thoughts on the AWI Typhoon III Extreme unit? It seems to have everything that is mentioned in here. It will run $243 with discount + shipping. Over priced, too many extras?
[/quote]

I've been using the Typhoon III NON-extreme for a few years and it's great. Maybe the ebay units are just as good, but this is a very solid and well-built unit. Probably weighs about 20 pounds.

I'm not sure I see enough in the Extreme package that would make me buy that over the vanilla Typhoon III. I did later add an inline TDS meter which is cool just for the efficiency of checking the in & out but honestly I think the handheld is plenty enough to get the job done and let you know when it's time to change filters.

To Mike's point about the salesy tone of the page, the content on the AWI site has always been a little infomercial-like but they do put out a good product.
 
So I talked to the AFI people and it seems their reef DI/RO setups have the "standard" 3:1 waste water:RO/DI water. Is it really that wasteful?
 
Sounds about average. Mine from Melev is a 4:1 I believe. I just run my wate line into my garden to water it and my trees. So it is not a total waste
 
Unless things have changed recently 3:1 is really good not "the standard". You could always go a DI only setup, prefilters + DI resins, if you have superior water quality to start with. The upside is there's zero waste, the downside you need to change resin that much more which can get costly.

Also it's only wasteful if your output goes down the drain, if you use that water in a place you normally would not so wasteful :)
 
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