RO/DI suggestions (1 Viewer)

[robrog]

I was hoping to get some ideas as to what size and type of RO/DI I will need to purchase and maybe some suggestions on where to buy it. How much filtration do I need, what is a good GPD to have? To help I'll let you in on my plan.....

This will be my first saltwater tank and I'm thinking somewhere in the 120 to 180 gal. range. My plan is for this to be a reef tank, but I am looking to start off with live rock and some easier corals. There are easier corals, right??? Now I am in the planning stages and setting money aside and working out my budget. I will probably have lots of questions, but I figured this was as good a place to start as any. Hopefully I'll be able to attend one of the Marsh meetings soon, I was planning for the April meeting, but being easter weekend, my wife has other plans for the family! Anyway, as I get closer to purchasing and setting up the tank I'll be asking some other newbie questions so I'll thank you in advance for any ideas and information you can share!

Rob

 

[Guest]

i got a 60 gpd kent ro/do hi-s from marine depot a few years ago. i just set it up on the wall in my garage, hook it up to my garage sink and fill a 44 gallon garbage can.

 

[KarenHorn]

We have a 135g and got a 100 gpd RO/DI unit off of Ebay (filterdirect) for about 120 with shipping. Personally I wouldn't get anything smaller. As it is it still takes about 5 hours to do 25 gallons.

 

[Brad]

I went with the Typhoon III from http://www.airwaterice.com/. I've had good sucess so far.

There is some interesting reading on there.

 

[Wildfire]

I also bought an eBay unit from filter direct. Great price., Mine is an 85 gpd, but I only REALLY get about 24 gpd out of it (H2O pressure problem?) It took me a full 5 days to fill my 135 g tank with a 5" DSB, and about 45 pounds of Limestone rock as base.....

But the water quality is very good with these units.

 

[pernelf]

for those of you who added an RO unit, how much increase in a water bill did you see?

 

[Guest]

We have a 135g and got a 100 gpd RO/DI unit off of Ebay (filterdirect) for about 120 with shipping. Personally I wouldn't get anything smaller. As it is it still takes about 5 hours to do 25 gallons.

i have over 200 gallons in my tanks (had 220) and have never been slowed down by my 60gpd day unit. do you run it into a garbage can as a holding tank? i can turn it on, go to bed and wake up to a full garbage can.

 

[Wildfire]

My H20 Bill went from $14 per month up to $14.35 after the RO was added.

 

[KarenHorn]

We have a 135g and got a 100 gpd RO/DI unit off of Ebay (filterdirect) for about 120 with shipping. Personally I wouldn't get anything smaller. As it is it still takes about 5 hours to do 25 gallons.

i have over 200 gallons in my tanks (had 220) and have never been slowed down by my 60gpd day unit. do you run it into a garbage can as a holding tank? i can turn it on, go to bed and wake up to a full garbage can.

We do run it into the garbage can and that's about 35g. I wouldn't ever consider leaving water running while I wasn't able to keep an eye on it. I filled my 135g in 2 days and it was worth it to me.

 

[texasreefer]

My H20 Bill went from $14 per month up to $14.35 after the RO was added.

I wish I had your water bill. Mine runs up to $200 a month in the summer because of my pool. I can't tell a difference because of my fish tanks.

 

[DonaldL]

I bought mine from ebay to it was from aquasafe canada it seems to be a good unit.it is a 100 gpd unit 6 stage.

 

[aqua-nut]

I too bought a 75 gpd RO/DI off Ebay from aquareefsafe Canada. Great company. It fills a 5 gallon jug in exactly two hours. Haven't done the math to see how many true gpd that is, but it's enough to keep up with my demands for top off water and water changes, which don't happen nearly enough, to be truthful!

I'd think that anyone with a 120-180 gallon tank wouldn't need a lot more than this... especially if you can set it up in your garage and collect water in a garbage can of some sort. If it leaks or overflows, it will just run down your driveway. May cost a bit on the water bill, but you won't do any damage to the inside of your house.

 

[Guest]

I have to buy one so I decided to do the math to see how long I am willing to wait for it to make 5G. Remember this is under optimal conditions and in the real world it will probally take 10% - 20% more time depending on the temp. and quality of the tap water.


Gallons Per Day-Gallons Per Hour--Time to Fill 5G
100----------------4.2------------------71 Min
75-----------------3.1------------------97 Min
60-----------------2.5------------------2 Hours
50-----------------2.1------------------2.3 Hours
25-----------------1.1------------------4.5 Hours
10-----------------0.4------------------12 Hours

 

[Guest]

I have a 75gpd unit with a drinking kit from Air Water & Ice. The nice thing about the drinking kit (besides good drinking water) is that I can fill up a 5g bucket in about 30 minutes, because it empties the 3g tank holding the drinking water first. I think I paid $189 for the whole thing - the same system without the drinking kit was $149.

FWIW, I would avoid the 100 gpd units. Those membranes have a much lower rejection rate in order to get that kind of throughput, which means you'll burn through DI cartridges 2-3 times as fast.

 

[Cakepro]

It is my understanding from my lengthy conversation with my RO guy that no unit will actually have the output it states. Supposedly the 75 gpd membranes are the most cost-effective when factoring in the price for DI resin refills.

~ Sherri

 

[fins]

We got ours from http://www.aquaticreefsystems.com/ it has a drinking water kit with it as well. I ran a line to a 5 gallon bucket in the cabinet next to the sink with a float switch, and a spicket like on a water cooler towards the bottom to get top off water from the bucket. Its works great, since we have smaller tanks, probably to teidious for the bigger tanks. Also spend a few dollars more and get a TDS meter to keep an eye on your DI resin.

 

[robrog]

Follow up

I just wanted to post a quick follow up for anyone interested. Thanks to everyone for all their helpful input! I went with a 75 gpd RO/DI filter from AquaSafe Canada on Ebay. The setup went pretty smooth and everything is working great! My tap water has a tds of 199. After fluhsing and then running 5 gallons it was down to a tds of 2. After a total of about 55 gallons I am now at a tds of 0. Thanks again for all your help and input!

 

[pernelf]

Well after Brandon tested my tap water with his TDS meter and it was almost 750 I think I'll pass on an R/O unit and keep going to Jacob's Well to buy my water.