A good advice for a RO unit ?

I also purchased the 5 stage plus from bulk reef supply and am very happy with.

 

I agree - this looks like a good system. I would say mine is comparable and maybe a touch cheaper. Mine does NOT come with the pressure gauge or the TDS meter. I bought a TDS meter and opted out for the pressure gauge.

 

My pressure gauge has come in handy, sometimes I forget and leave the flush valve open, the pressure gauge tells me "hey dummy, you only have 20 psi going through this thing right now why don't you close the flush valve." You also want a vertical DI canister, the horizontal ones are not nearly has good, nor are they as large. Sometimes people use 2 DI stages.

 

That's the one I have and I've been very happy with it. I like bulk reef supply's service and prices

 

RO/DI Unit

Gents,

Thank you very much. I am currently buying water from Walmart's RO unit. and though minor, I do battle a bit on hair algae. This tells me that their RO unit is not doing a good job on silicates and phosphates (there is no DI - I can see this).

Do you guys supply regular or soft water to your unit ? Where I live (Indiana) water hardness is close to 24.

Cheers,
Marian

 

Some things to look for in a good system for this hobby:

Good system:

Standard-sized prefilters, membrane, and DI cartridge
Brand name, high-rejection membrane
Specifications provided for each stage
Pressure gauge after the prefilters and before the membrane
Thermometer
DI bypass
Vertical DI stage
Refillable DI cartridge
Aluminum bracket
Quick connect fittings
Flush valve
Clear housings
High-quality instructions
Customer support after your purchase

Russ

 

If you have a softener, by all means, supply softened water to the system. On the commercial systems we install a water softener is nearly always installed ahead of the RO.

Russ

 

ALW - are you open to some constructive comments on this system?

Russ

 

Absolutely.

 

We do a steady flow of business re-working systems that are configured oddly so this one really caught my eye.

1. Horizontal DI stages are a fundamental design/configuration shortcoming. So first thing is to unclip the DI from its clips, and orient it vertically with bottom up flow.

2. We find the DI housings often don't come entirely packed full/tight with resin - if that's the case the mixed bed resin will separate when the bed fluidizes, and the treatment will not be as good as it could be.

3. When your pressure tank isn't full and it calls for water - it will receive DI water. Those tanks are intended for RO (not DI) water. Assuming you have a stainless steel fitting on the top of the tank - you'll have contact between metal and DI water - again - this is a fundamental design error.

4. After the water runs through the DI stage, it is as clean as the system can make it. But in that system the water then goes through a carbon stage. Although it is customary to have that carbon stage between the pressure tank and the faucet - its odd to run the water through DI resin BEFORE the carbon. So all the water that goes to the faucet for drinking has needlessly run through the DI stage and used up the capacity of the resin.

Our Reef/Residential Series systems are configured with a full size, vertical, refillable DI stage, and the system has RO water delivered to a pressure tank, carbon stage, and faucet. So it is absolutely do-able to have a system provide RO water for drinking, and DI water for your aquarium - but that system isn't plumbed as it should be.

Russ