Tap water
 

Darn, I left my RO/DI out on the balcony for a week and now one of the white capsules cracked open.. grrrrrrrrr... anyone use tap water in Vancouver? Any suggestions until I can get a replacement? :)

JT

I'd run down to your nearest Super Market and buy some RO out of the dispenser machine. If you already got the bottle it should be only $2 for 10 gallons. That would be safer until you get RO unit up and running again.
I learned the hard way, leave the tap water in the tap! And where I live in Nanaimo, I have good quality water that runs through in house filtration too. It was just algae city!!

yeah....dont use tap water...You get crazy algae.

Thx guys, yep, I just bought some DI at the grocery store... :biggrin:
I already have problem with hair algae from time to time, the last thing I want is more.

JT

JT do you use an RO/DI unit? if you do and your DI unit is fine then just use that if you can by pass the others, DI is what polishes your water. If you don't get an aquarium pharmacies tap water purifier, it's a DI unit, once you get your RO unit fixed up, run the DI after the RO unit and you'll have flawless water.

You missed a great meeting by the way, TONS of frags....

Doug

isnt the most expensive part of the ro/di unit the DI membrane and by using it without the RO unit then it ll just wear down you unit really fast??

DI isnot a membrain it is a cartrage filled with resin that the water flows through. The membrain is you actual RO, and if you use it with out carbon prefilters you will destroy it real fast as chlorine desolves the membrain.

Steve

But yes the Di is the most expensive part of the set up but it's renewable, JT should be able to handle the chemicals required seeing he's a pretty smart kinda guy. Like Steve says Di isn't a membrane.

Doug

$hit, two of mine cracked :evil: . JT, did you happen to get a price on them?.

nope you can buy a brand new DI cartrage for 40 bucks at J&L, but a 100gpd membrin there is 150.00. the RO membrain is the single most expensive part of a system.

Steve

HOLY SMOKESSSSS... Sticking with DI myself... Wow.. $150?

You can buy the whole new 100 gpd from north van for that can't you?

Doug

when you buy a inital system stuff is heavaly discounted and usaly there are "noname" membrains big companies buy bulk and get them a lot cheeper so they can put togeather systems for say 250.00.

If you look at retail prices just a carbon filter housing is 40.00 (you need 3 of these), the housing for the membrain is 100.00, and the bracket is 25.00. pluss 20 bucks for fittings and hoses. so this would cost the average person almost 265.00 and there is no membrain or filters yet. so tack on another 150 to 200 depending on your membrain and filters. I can go get the same system prebuilt for around 200.00 if I buy it premaid from the factory.

the thing is if you treat the membrain properly it can last 2 to 3 years (or more) so that is only 70 to 90 a year upkeep for complete filter change (I use mine for drinking water in the house also as I have a water cooler) currently I make a minimum of 30 gal per week just for top off water and drinking water and more for water changes so that is a minimum of 1800 gal per year. so if my membrain only lasts 2 years it costs me $0.05/gal (1/15th of the cheepest place I can buy water) the tap water purifyer claims between 50 and 150 gal on a cartrage (first one is 50 bucks then after that it is 30 for a refill from J&L) so lets assume it will do 200 gal then it would cost $0.15/gal or 3 times what I pay and thats assuming a output greater than advertized.

Steve

I think I'm going to start collecting rain water.. (with my luck vancouver wont get anymore rain now). All joking aside, that's not bad when you look at the cost per gallon it's just hard to justify that cost outlay, for me it is. That's one of the reasons I'm thinking of staying with the 175 MH, all this stuff will need replacement. As far as the tap water purifier, I can get the cartridges much cheaper than that and now with the information on re newing them I assume ( I haven't tried it) that my cost will go way down. I find the tap water purifier last me about 6 months right now. In retrospect, our water here isn't so bad, some carbon and a phosphate sponge would take care of 99% of our problems I bet.

Doug