Dual membrane upgrade kit

When I started this hobby I tried to DIY an RO/DI which I did by basically copying the way a portable unit is built. It never put out alot of water very quick, like 2 gallons an hour while it wasted who knows how many. Over time I just continued to tweak and add parts and finally got it to about 4:1.

Last week I added the water saver kit from BRS to my FrankenRODI and now I'm finally happy. I'm getting 1:1.5 and filling 5 gallon jugs in 20 minutes. If I could warm my water up a bit I'd greatly increase my waste to good ratio but I'm happy with where it's at and I really don't make so much water that it'd make a difference on the bill. I'm real interested in seeing how long my DI resin lasts before TDS creep begins to show on the meter.

I admit that for what I've dumped in to this monster as far as money I could have bought a higher end BRS, Reef Miser or similar but hey, it's done and instead of a bunch of mulah up front I've spread it out over a year.

 

Lowering the waste ratio to anything less than 4:1 will greatly reduce the life of your RO membranes. Notice established companies like Spectrapure, AWI and others in business for dozens of years do not promote dual membranes as a water saving device.
It has been tried over and over for years and just does not prove out. Membranes must be flushed continously, there is no getting around it.

Think about it for a minute, if it were that easy all the companies would have been selling them years ago. truset me, they tried it and it did not work for long so they decided rather than have unhappy customers they do not promote it as a water saver. I have owned a dual membrane system and at 4:1 waste ratio I was getting almost 240 GPD at 68 psi pressure. No reason to cut the waste ratio when you can get good production if you have the required 65 psi or more, heck I get 120+ GPD now out of a single membrane with a boooster pump set at 90 psi and water as cold as 56 degrees.

 

Of course they don't. They'd rather have you buying their 150gpd microprocessor controlled units for a grand. Which is fine if you can afford it and want to spend that much. Me..I can't.
I also can't see letting 4 gallons go to waste for every gallon I make. That would mean I'd have 16-20 gallons of water I'd have to figure out how to store or use every day on average. Yes I have to make 5 gallons a day at least to keep up with evap on my all my tanks. I don't have that many house plants, one yellow lab isn't going to drink that much and I'm to old and lazy to store then pump it into the washing machine for my wife every Saturday when she does the laundry.

And besides the membranes are the same and in series so both of them are continually being flushed and one flow restrictor on the second membrane runs them both.

Seems me and the other couple hundred people that posted reviews and threads about this issue are being duped by those unestablished businesses like thefilterguys and bulkreefsupply. And don't say those businesses support the system because you'll need to buy more membranes. A DOW's still a DOW or a FilmTec's still a FilmTec no matter where I buy it from.

 

Don't say you have not been warned. Membranes need flushing and the companies who have been in business more than a few years will all tell you the same thing. If Spectrapure didn't have to invest hundreds of thousands on development costs and manufacturing don't you think thats the way they would have gone? I don't think you are using common sense, I would rather sell a million low cost units rather than a few high cost units any day. One day you will realize what I am saying. Check with Melev, or Buckeye, or PurelyH2o or Watts Premier, or even the ebay vendors, they will all confirm exactly what I am saying, it does not work for long.

 

I've used this every day since installing it. Last Friday I made 50 gallons of water for the big water change I did on Saturday to "officially" call the end of the 90's cycle. Saturday I made 18 gallons for the bi-monthly w/c on my 46. (It's 71 gallons total volume so that makes it roughly 20%) On Sunday I made 30 gallons to do a 20% change on my grow out system and I made at least 5 gallons per day to cover evaporation loss between all of my systems which total over 8 days, another 40 gallons.

Total 138 gallons good water made
Total 92 gallons went down the drain

Before the dual membrane system over 500 gallons would have gone to waste. That's at 4:1 and in all actuality I was getting a little worse ratio than that.

Costs don't look that good in monetary terms. I only pay .007 cents/per gallon for water. But an average month for my household is 13000 gallons used.
92 X .007 = $.64
552 X .007 = $3.86
Saved myself $3.22 just in reducing waste.
Lets say that's the average for 12 months just for fun. That's an extra $38.64 in my pocket. I can buy a nice frag or take my wife to dinner with that.
But let's look at the big picture. If you've read this post by post you'll know I have what I call the FrankenRODI. It's a conglomeration of parts I've put together over a year or so.
The TDS from the cities water right out of the tap averages 335ppm. I've never measured what it is after the RO membrane. I always meant to but have never purchased another in-line meter. Guess I could always change the position of the "in" probe.
My DI canister isn't a big ol' housing with the refillable cartridge that holds 1.25#'s of resin. It's the little clear tube with the two screw off end caps and only holds 8 oz. of resin. Now at low pressures, 40psi is the highest they'll let me turn my house up to that resin will last about 120 gallons before the inline TDS meter begins showing 1ppm and snowballs from there. 20 gallons later I was changing it.
On average I was buying 3 pounds of resin every other month. That's $27 + shipping so say $35. After I added a pump to boost my pressure up the life of the resin took a drastic fall and I was getting TDS at 40-45 gallons made. Now I was using 3#'s a month. If that had continued I would have spent $280 on resin just over the remaining 8 months of this year.
After the dual membrane conversion and all of the water I've made this week the resin still has a solid color, not even the stuff at the very bottom of the tube shows much sign of color change. And the "out" side of the TDS meter is still reading 0.
I bought 3.75#'s of resin when I bought the upgrade kit. I always vacumm seal the extra and I'm thinking it will be a while before I have to cut the bag open again. I won't know until the end of the year how much I'll save on resin but let's just say conservatively it will be around $190. Maybe I'll buy that extra dual TDS meter after all.

 

Add at least two new membranes per year as they will not last at that waste ratio guaranteed. it has been prven time and again. Thats another $70-$80 per year.

 

Dude,
After talking with the guys at BRS and email converstation with Grassy (Jim) over at thefilterguys, it makes perfect sense why this works. It also proved to me something I already suspected.
Do you own SpectraPure or just work for them?
Jim and I both would like you to find and post this thread just one complaint about the Dual Membrane Upgrade or the Reef Miser system on ANY reef forum. Make sure you provide a link back to keep it honest.
Sucks about RC man

*edit to anyone reading this thread, just do your research before listening to the advice of just one person when it comes to anything saltwater related.

 

Jim has been in the business what, 4 years now?
Talk to Walter or the guys at Air Water and Ice who have been doing it about 27 years, or Charles at Spectrapure who has been at it 25 years, or Russ at Buckeye who has an easy 10+ years, or the folks at PurelyH2o that trace back to ARS with about 20+ years in the Industry.

You are talking to the wrong group of people and its just like Jim to bring up the past, the guy is a troublemaker and has an ego problem.

The simple fact is it is not that easy of every one of the vendors I mentioned would be doing the same thing. Since they are all legitimate businesses they choose to not subject their customers to something that they have tested and found fails prematurely. Its not something that happens overnight but it will fail. Ask Jim if they have a test facility, what the TDS of the water in that test facility is and how many thousands of hours they have in testing membranes? I think you will be surprised at the answer.

Heck, even call the folks at Watts Premier, they don't do reef systems but they have been in the RO business for 25 years or more. I know exactly what they will tell you and they do have a test facility.

 

I would say talk to everyone, just like the advice you give at the end of that post, RM. You're making it seem like you took just one guy's advice TBH. If you think the others are scamming people, they likely won't be colluding to give the same story. It might be some extra time to get all their responses, but it will help everyone else in either case.

Sent from a phone.

 

To me - this looks just like LED's right now - sure you can get more light output (in lumens/watts/par/pur) by upping the amperage and driving them close to their rated capacity - and in the time they are used they will be brighter (aka your RO/DI WILL output more) - but the LED's because they are being overworked - will fail prematurely (just like AZ is telling you about the membranes - they will work fine for a while - but they will fail prematurely).