ro water

[Donald]

I have high levels of phosphate in my tap water. Does anyone have any suggestions for buying an RO filter without spending a fortune?

 

[TimSchmidt]

Ebay had a RO/DI unit for about 99 bucks. cheapest I've seen them.

Tim

 

[Donald]

Tim: Do I need the DI unit also? Thanks. Don

 

[TimSchmidt]

Well need might be a strong word for it but the RO/DI is the best, RO second best, then I guess distilled, then maybe tap water. So It's really up to how much you wanna put into it. With RO/DI you won't have to worry about any water imperections at all. I would buy the 99 buck RO/DI unit. Granted the one I quoted was only 24 gallons a day but heck, we do nano tanks right

 

[rbek75]

Just out of curiosity wouldn't boiling tap water (although time consuming) get rid of the chlorine, etc???

 

[TimSchmidt]

I guess, but if you had any ... ANY... metals or minerals in the water they would stick around and actually become more concentrated. If price is an issue go to Walmart and buy distilled water, Saidie uses that with success I believe.

Tim

 

[skipm]

An RO membrane only removes a percentage of the contaminants in water, this is what they are talking about when they refer to a rejection rate. Most membranes have a rejection rate in the mid 90s, so lets say you have 200 ppm of phosphate and have a RO unit with a 95% rejection rate, you will still have about 10 ppm of phosphate. This is where the DI cartridge comes in, it removes more than an RO membrane can but would become exhausted very quickly if you tried to use it to remove everything so by having it filter water that has been filtered through an RO filter it has much less to remove. By combining the RO and DI together you get water that should have a TDS of near 0 which is what you want.

 

[Donald]

great answers! thanks! I started using RO water from Walmart, but found myself doing less water changes because it was inconvenient. I may buy the filter from ebay. I hope it's of good quality. Anyone ever buy a filter from the predominant RO Filter seller on ebay?

 

[TimSchmidt]

Nope but I will be buying one here in about a week (bday present to myself :lol: !!) Of course I won't be able to use it until april 13th or beyond... (new house and must wait till closing date :sad: ..).

Tim

 

[Donald]

Tim: you have no qualms about buying from that ebay supplier? His prices are cheaper than buying from fish suppliers, but I'm leary because his filters are not brand names, and buying replacement cartridges may be an issue.

 

[TimSchmidt]

Well I'm sure the support will be non existant but as far as replacement cartridges go, that supplier is giving away a set with the RO\DI unit. So you are going to get about 2 years of RO/DI water for about 99 bucks :shock: . Even if I can never find a replacement cartridge (I think other brands would fit, I might email the guy and ask for dimensions of the cartridges) that'll be a fair amount of water. Anyway it's a risk I'm willing to take as I will only need about 8 gallons a month for my weekly 10% water changes (comes to about 50 cents a gallon using those numbers)... so the membranes and filters should last a little longer than normal.

Tim

 

[skipm]

The RO membranes are only made by 2 suppliers the last time I knew so they are all the same whether in a $300 unit or a $50 unit. The units I have seen on Ebay use standard 10" cartridges which can be bought almost anywhere for the sediment and carbon filters. The Di filter is usually an inline unit that can be bought from most RO dealers or you can buy a retrofit kit to add another 10" cartridge for the DI that can then be bought online or from most LFS.

 

[djconn]

Wow, that is some really good info. I'm now know way more than I used to know about RO/DI units. :shock: