aquasafe canada ro/di waste
 

hi guys i bought a used aquasafe canada brand ro/di on here and after testing it at home it seem that water was coming out the DI part very very slow.... about 1 drop/ sec.... and i needed to do a water change so i just used the waste water discharge of the unit... is this safe? or very bad? i tested phosphate and the water was at 0.25ppm i didnt change the water of my tank yet. Im still letting the salt mix and the temp even out. I used a milwakee TDS that came with it but each time i put it in saltwater it doesnt show a ppm just 03 in very very tiny font at the top right corner.. tested it with my tap water and it said 7ppm.. what should i do? use the waste water? or how do i fix the unit.. i took off the Di unit connection but the water seem to be coming out super slow from the 4th stage of the unit.

You would be better off using straight tap water with conditioner instead of your waste water. There's a reason it's called waste water!

low residential water pressure,hence low water production.

you can get a booster pump to bring up the water pressure.

scratch out the tds meter part i was using it incorrectly..should i just use my fridge water for now? it seem to show 0 ppm phospate when i tested that

sure why not. maybe use some prime to be safe.

what is your RO/DI rated at?
1 drop per second sounds like a 50GPD or less unit.
If you hold the 2 hoses, for ever drop of clean water there should be 3 drops of waste, roughly.

I have a 75gpd unit, on city pressure of 60PSI and I can make 10 gallons in around 2.5-3 hours.

Does your RO unit have a pressure gauge? what does it read?
Unplugging the DI part wont make your water production any faster.


and yeah it's called waste water for a reason. Not sure why you'd even consider using it. Would defeat the whole purpose of an RO.

i connected the pressure gauge to the waste discharge and it reads 60 psi as it should.. i called aquasafe and they said the previous owner prob did not use the ro/di in a while so it might have dried out and needs replacing -.- which will cost more including the price i paid for it for a brand new one....

anyways the waste water that i left heating with a powerhead for about 5 hrs now.. i tested it again for phosphate and it reads pretty close to zero now.. should i just use it? how did the phosphate just magically dissapeared?

RO membranes are not THAT expensive. JL or Bulk Reef supply if you can make a states run.
keep in mind if you buy a new membrane that the flow restrictor matches.
Do you know any details from before?
how long the guy had it?.
Being a sealed cannister with only 1 tube in and 1 out It's pretty hard to dry out the RO membrane.

again do you have the rating of the unit?

I think we might be missing a few details.

When you put the pressure gauge on the waste line you read 60psi? Is that before or after the flow restrictor.

You should test the TDS of the fresh water, not the salt water.

Check what the TDS is coming out of your tap (use a very clean container).

Compare that to what comes out of the RO unit before the DI and also after the DI.

So you should have 3 TDs readings.

RO/DI doesn't just remove phosphates but other bad things in the water. Put it this way. If you had a glass of water and mixed sand in it, waited until the sand settled in the glass, then took a straw and drunk the crud on the bottom, that is your waste water.

That is why it is called waste water. It is all of the bad stuff you want removed (not just phosphates).

What water have you been using before? Just use that

The guy before me said he had it for two years but just changed the first 3 filters to the unit about 2 months ago. I have the same unit as the one on www.aquasafecanada.com

Thanks for clearing up the waste water part for me. Yes I the gausge read 60 psi on the waste water discharge line after the flow adjuster. After disconnecting the connection to the di unit the water going to it was already dripping 1-2 drops/ sec which would be the 4th part of the unit. I tried opening it to see what's causing the blockage but I'm not able to pull out any filter part like I thought it would have. Seems to be a built in unit for that part. I was using my fridge water to change my tank water before this. Should I just dump my 15g make up water from the waste outlet? Even tho it is reading 0phosphate now? What would happen if I just use it.

I may be in minority here, but I think Vancouver tap water with prime is good enough for most reef tanks. For soft corals it is certainly fine. We have great tap water here. Don't use the ro/di waste water, better off using tap water.

What the heck?

Waste water is cleaner than the water that you fed the RO unit...

What are you guys Putin' in yer water out there... Liberals. ( a joke ok)

If you say you have the same unit as the one on the site then something is wrong. A 100GPD membrane should have a constant stream of water being produced not a drop every second.

If not water pressure then your membrane may well be malfunctioning.

Does it have a back flush unit? because it minght be that the flush unit is not well adjusted? On my RO unit if this gadget is not well adjusted my unit only produce a few drops like yours.

just a wild guess here. This or it needs a new membrane. I usually pay around 50$ for a brand new membrane.