RO...RO/DI choices
 

Howdy Canreefers,

I have enough small fresh and salt tanks in the house it's time I looked at an RO or RO/DI solution. Especially as our Langley water has taken to creeping up over 7.6pH within hours of going in a tank at 6.8pH and buying RO for the reef is getting $$$.

What have you folks found as an efficient, inexpensive solution? Is RO good enough or should I add DI? I probably only use 20G a week now but I will be adding a larger reef tank (aren't we all :lol: ) in the not too distant future. I appreciate any feedback. :mrgreen:

just installed in the last 2 weeks a ro/di system from aquasafe in west van. awsome setup, reasonable price @ 102.50 us for a 100 gals. aday. you definetly want a di system. i ordered it one day and it was there the next.

Scott,
I agree with Darin, 100% that you get an RO/DI system :exclaim:

Chloramine cannot be removed by RO alone, for more info on this subject check out the latest article in Reefkeeping.com, I have posted a link to the article:http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-1...ture/index.htm

You should also look at the larger units like 75gls and up. The larger the unit, the less time to produce clean water. Unless of course you have many hours to sit around babysitting water pails :mrgreen:

DI may be nice but it is not nessasary. you need to take Chloramine out befor it reaches the membrain as chloriene will destroy a membrain pretty fast.

for this reason I have modified my RO to have a progressive prefilter (goes from 25micron to 1 micron) and then TWO chlorine block filters. then my dual membrains and finaly my DI (I don't think I would spend the money on a DI again living out here as the output from my RO is 0ppm befor my DI stage.)

the problem with the west coast is we have a abnormaly high algae content in our water wich will plug up a 1 micron prefilter in no time. also we use chloramine which is harder to remove than chlorine. Carbon will remove it but there is a chance that using only one carbon block filter the dwell time will be to short in higher out put RO's for it all to be removed. This will lead to a premature membrain failure.

My set up is a little extream (320GPD) but I would recomend 50 GPD as a minimum and 100GPD as a recomended starting point. If you get the 50 GPD you can always upgrade the membrain later to a larger one.

Steve

Tell me about it. :rolleyes:

What should I expect for ongoing costs (membranes, etc)? Do systems generally have float valves, etc so I can avoid babysitting buckets? :mrgreen: Other than aquasafe do you recommend any other systems?

Scott,
I have a Kent system from J&L's, best buck that I have ever spent on my reef :mrgreen:

Does the GVRD even use Chloramine? I have had some pretty good luck using the TAP water resins and recharging them........ they last for about 300 gallons. Our water is pretty low on the tds (17 the last time I checked).

Cheers,
Victor Veng68

Yes it does.

Steve

Well, I think almost all RO's are in adaquat for our water here as they always have a 1 micron as a first stage. To improve this I would put a 5 micron infront to catch the algae. that way you can change a $5.00, 5 micron filter say every 4 months and extend the life of your 1 micron filter.

you can reasonably expect a membrain to last 2 years if it is taken care of, and I don;t use a float valve on my top off storage where some do. I use that timer on the stove :mrgreen:

I can't recomend any places as I am working on a deal to be able to supply RO's myself, but I can say to inquire about the GPD ratings and at what PSI they are rated. as I mentioned in another post a lot of companies are using membrains and giving the rating for the higher PSI. so what you will see id a 100 gpd unit for a good price but it will only put out 100 gpd @ 100 PSI. that same membrain is only rated for 45 GPD @ 50 PSI (which is more realistic for most resadential pressures.

The unit I just built for my self has membrains rated for 75 GPD @ 50 PSI and 160 GPD @ 100 PSI hence I have a comercial pump comming this week as I only have 40 PSI water pressure in my new house :rolleyes:

Steve

What's the implication of using a float valve on the topoff storage? (Assuming one has a solenoid on the input side of the RO or RO/DI as well...)

Are you sure? The Greater Vancouver Regional District has never given notices about the switch to Chloramine. Usually they alert all the pet shops (like when they increased the concentration of chlorine) or atleast post a newspaper article. I notice that you are from Victoria........ maybe when I posted GVRD you mixed that up with Victoria?

I checked the GVRD website www.gvrd.bc.ca and they mention nothing about chloramine only that they use Ozone as a primary disifectant and chlorine as a secondary disinfectant.

Cheers,
Victor Veng68

from the link you posted
"Secondary Disinfection
As water flows through the distribution system, the disinfectant used at the primary stage gradually breaks down. This creates the potential for bacteria to grow in the water. Secondary disinfection with chlorine is used to continue safe-guarding the water as it travels to homes, businesses, and industries in the Lower Mainland. Ozone cannot be used as a secondary disinfectant because it breaks down too quickly."

dollers to donuts I will bet that there chlorine addition is in the form of Chloramine as chlorine breaks down to fast. Oazone is only a new (sence 1998) primary disafenctant.

Steve

I send them an -email to make sure. I think it's chlorine because if they used chloramine I think there would be a lot more unhappy aquarists around the Lower Mainland. I'll keep the baord posted.

Cheers,
Vic Veng68

the problem with this is as I was reading there water report then mentions that there are frequently high levels of amonia causing a disinfectant smell.. the problem with this is chloramine is basicly chloriene added then amonia added they mix and you have chloramine. so if there is amonia present in the water and they are adding chlorine then there is a good chance they have a end result of chloramine. maybe ask them about this also.

Steve

Any update from the GVRD?

A few weeks ago, my RO filter was plugged up and I didn't want to wait to get a new carbon block so I thought I would do a small water change with tap water. I thought it might be OK because I've used tap water for top-offs before. Well, this time after the water change, I lost 2 acro frags and my frogspawn bleached and everything in the tank looked unhappy. The tank turned cloudy and I got a lot of brown algae. I smelled the tap water and there was a chemical odour of some sort. I'm guessing that the chlorine was what killed off the algae/zooxanthella in my tank. The good news is that 2 weeks later, my tank is almost back to normal (except 2 of my acros is now brown).

By the way, where's the cheapest source for membrane replacements? Does Aquasafe sell just the membrane? I haven't found any EBAY auctions on membranes. They just have prefilters. Can I put a 100 GPD membrane in my 60 GPD unit?

before i had a 120 and used jsut RO and i had a bad cynao problem,
and now with the 280 i filled it with TAP WATER :redface: ANmd then got a RO/DI WATER going and switched to that and what a difference..

ANY WAY FOR THE EXTRA we always say go the distance with the RO/DI
never again will i use RO

Mike