Chloramines...grrrrr

Ahh. It’s 550ml

 

Yeah I’m thinking it’s tome to get a booster pump, an extra sediment filter, an extra membrane and 1 more di canister.

I think that will do everything I need.

Where are you finding $100 booster pumps. I see them for around $150

A couple more questions...

If I upgrade to another membrane should I change the flow restrictor to something different...like 800ml?

Should I replace the old membrane at the same time I get a new membrane to maximize the life of both or just add a new one since I’m still only getting 3 tds out of the current membrane?

 

Yeah I’m thinking it’s tome to get a booster pump, an extra sediment filter, an extra membrane and 1 more di canister.

I think that will do everything I need.

A couple more questions...

If I upgrade to another membrane should I change the flow restrictor to something different...like 800ml?

Should I replace the old membrane at the same time I get a new membrane to maximize the life of both or just add a new one since I’m still only getting 3 tds out of the current membrane?

 

I haven’t tested because I read the same thing. I hate that it’s a kind of a guessing game.

 

Just add a second membrane. 550 ml is good for the 75 gpd.
Look at brs during Black Friday sales for the aquatec 8800 booster pump. I believe I've seen them for as low as $100. That may have been without the power supply tho. I believe there is a "pump only "option. You obviously would need the whole kit tho.

 

Yeah the pump is $100

So this is the plan...and it’s not cheap

1. Add a booster pump and shutoff valve
2. Add a 5 micron sediment filter in front of the system
3. Replace the current filters with a 1 micron sediment and 2 carbon blocks capable of handeling chloramines.
4. Replace the current membrane
5. Add a new 75gpd membrane to make better use of all filters
6. Add another di resin cartridge so I can maximize the usage of di resin...move the second canister to the first when changing chamber 1

Here’s the total price...ouch! It may be cheaper to just buy a new 6 stage and booster pump...I’ll have to look into that. I added enough filters to replace them again in a year or so. This should keep me making good water for almost 2 years though.

I also plan to wait for Black Friday and see what I can get.

 

I did a bit of research on this and some people are stating that it is possible that the strips are not reading wrong when people are getting 0 readings on chloramines. Some people are saying that the chloramines are being extracted by the time it reaches a persons house and that the strips are reading 0 because they really are 0 by the time it hits their faucets. Now call me a skeptic but I almost find this hard to believe so i'll definitely continue to do research on it and also I just ordered the strips anyways and will test them for myself when they come in. I'll let you know of the outcome.

 

I use a 20" bb chloramine monster that's 20 microns for chloramine before my 10" chloramine cartridge from brs. My Frankenstein rodi is over kill you don't want to know how much I spent on mine. But I can get a year's worth of water on them and i make a ton of water.


I lost two bouts to chloramine and killed thousands of dollars on large colonies. I'm no skimming on cartridges again.


My current setup

20" 1 micron sediment --> 20" bb 1 micron chlorine -> 2 x 20" chloramine plus 20 micron carts -> 2 x 10" chloramine carts --> 2x 90gpd membrane series -> 20" di --> 10" di

You can just do 1 micron sediment them a large chloramine cart and then a chlorine cart to membrane and still get good results.

I think I made over 8000 gallons of good water last year.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

Please keep us posted. Thanks!

 

Wow!

The reason I brought this up is to avoid what happened to you. That’s my worst nightmare.

 

Test strips are terrible.

I do have carbon like I said above, but instead of going overkill there, I went overkill on the back end.
I have 3 DI resin chambers. Anion, Cation, and a final mixed stage for safety.
They do not get used at the same rate, so it might even be saving money.
I hope to almost never replace the final stage.

The WHY - is because DI resin is color changing.
I really have no idea when my carbon filters need replacing.
And I don't test EVER, let alone often enough to catch it properly.
DI resins are easy to see if they need to be changed.

 

Well I found an old batch of test strips and decided to give it a go, in all fairness the test strips had an expiration date of April 2016 so how well they actually work still is questionable. Also I don't know how chlorine versus chloramines read, but decided to test SF tap versus my RO top off water. The chlorine portion showed an ever so slight pink hue to it compared to the RO one which was was just white, it's supposed to be pinker the more chlorine is detected, but again not sure how much will read. According to SF water quality report the levels of chloramines are anywhere from 0.1 to 3.0 (pretty large range) now the slight pink I saw could correspond to the lower levels if it was a 1:1 reaction (chlorine versus chloramine). Bottom line, from memory when I first got them it did show a noticeable pink when tested against tap, but not as much as now which could be due to the expired nature of the strip.

So ultimately... I dunno.

 

Yeah that’s my other option... I was considering just using what I have with new filters and 3 stages of di. I have u til Black Friday to decide

 

Well come to the Chloramine rabbit hole many of us have fallen down at some point.

Here’s what I recommend after my own prior research and trial/error:

Stage 1: Sediment filter. Since it sounds like you are losing pressure quickly, either a second sediment filter or religiously replace the first one whenever you see a pressure drop after the sediment filter.

Stages 2&3: 2 BRS chloramine filters. You really don’t need anything more robust in my opinion, and I considered all of the options discussed above.

Stages 4&5: 2 RO/DI membranes. The second is definitely worth it in my opinion since it gives approximately double the water production for the same amount of prefilter usage (which it sounds like you will be going through a lot of). Either the 75 gpd or 100 gpd DOW filters would be fine, but note that the 75 gpd filters report a higher rejection rate (less for DI to take care of) and don’t require as high a pressure, so would be preferable in my opinion.

Stages 6&7: 2 DI resin filters. Variety of options, but 2 pre-made filters is the easiest way to get the job done.

I don’t refill any filters with loose media because it seems like more work and more variable quality than I want.

My water pressure is about 60 psi. I had purchased a booster pump based on the above type comments, but wound up returning it because my system was performing optimally without.

My Frankensystem was based on a Spectrapure MaxCap setup, so I added some BRS canisters to arrive at: 0.5um sediment filter, 1um BRS universal carbon filter, 1um BRS universal carbon filter, 90 gpd SP membrane, 90 gpd SP membrane, SP SuperDIMaxCap DI, SP SuperDISilica-Buster DI.

My only real gripe with piecing together a system is that each new push-fitting is a possibility for a leak, which I generally cause every time I touch the system. The more all-in-1 the better as far as I’m concerned.

 

Where did you find .5 micron sediment filters?

 

From Spectrapure. I don’t know for sure that it makes a difference worth the extra cost, but in general since these sizes are the center of a range, not absolutes, it seemed to make sense to have the smallest size in the pre-filter in front. Plus it was what I’ve been using for a long time since before I expanded the system.

 

Yes, refilling the carbon is questionable. You can get a case pretty cheap.

I like filling DI though. You can also do it when half way deplenished, and replace just the bad part.

They also have a 0.2 micron sediment filter.
Although with that, you probably want a 1 or 5 micron sediment filter in front of it.

 

Thank you for the input. That’s about where I ended up last night.

The only think I’m still debating is the booster pump. I really don’t want to use one unless I absolutely need to.

I’ll see what happens Black Friday.

 

How about getting this bad boy?

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-reverse-osmosis-chloramines-monster.html

 

I definitely thought about it. But I don’t believe I actually “need” that. Lol