where i get my water

cool, thanks man

 

Pass on the inline, its not as accurate and you lose the portability since its dedicated to two spots and canot be used portable. A good handheld will run circles around it in both performance and in usability.

 

Ro/di

ZJ, you can get a good quality RO/DI on Ebay for right under $200 now. A couple years ago they sold for twice that. Some even include free shipping!! I have two for my tanks and bought one for my folks....all made by WaterGeneral. If you go on their store through the Ebay link, you can get a TDS meter on also for $25....worth its weight in gold. Be very careful buying replacement filters on Ebay though. They're usually pretty shoddy and not worth it. I give my LFS a little business here and bite the bullet and pay full price for good quality filters......GOOD LUCK!!!

 

Personally I would pass on the Water General too. They use questionable filters, small horizontal poorly preforming DI filters and sub standard fittings and components. They are drinking water systems being passed off as reef quality and they are not the same thing.
Compare on of their to a true reef quality unit like the 75 GPD Premium from Buckeye Field Supply, the Optima series from PurelyH2o (which also sells on ebay under the H2O Science name), the MaxCap from Spectrapure, Typhoon III from Air Water & Ice or one of the Bulk Reef Supply units and you wil see big differences.

Look at the Premium from Buckeye, $169 and you get a handheld TDS meter, inline pressure gauge, thermometer, Dow Filmtec RO membrane, 1 micron prefilter, 0.6 micron 20,000 gallon carbon block, true vertical 20 oz refillable DI filter with bottom up engineered flow so no channelling or short circuiting, a bypass valve, a flush valve etc. Hard to beat and excellent support. The directions are even written in clear precise english and easy to understand.

 

Ro/di

So I take it you have a "Buckeye"? Do you make RO/DI units? What are the parameters of water in your AZ water supply going into your system? How do you, "...compare on of their units..." if they are too small to stand on? How much wood does a woodchuck-chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? If the blade of a knife is 5" long, how much does a pound of beans weigh?

 

No I don't use a Buckeye, I use a Spectrapure MaxCap UHE and previously a dual membrane MaxCap. I am a water treatment plant supervisor by profession and yes I have compared them side by side.
In Phoenix our TDS runs between 500 and 1200 on average, a WaterGeneral DI wouldn't last a week here. I am helping a couple people upgrade their as I am typing this. With RO/DI you really do get what you pay for.

My MaxCap has 780 TDS going in, 5 TDS after the RO only and 0 TDS after each of the two DI filters and gets somewhere over 1500 gallons out of a DI last time I checked, it went almost 9 months on a single DI and I make a lot of water with two systems.

 

Ro/di

It's another matter of economics. My system is a 6 stage, is a 100gph, came with all filters including a Filmtec membrane, a 4gal reservoir, and a sink spigot for drinking water.

I'm located right on the river.....have had my newer system in operation for over two years now and TDS still 0.

Go figure...........

 

Stages don't mean a hill of beans, its something the ebay vendors dreamed up to make a mediocre system sound impressive. All you need for a dynamite RO system is 3 stages and a RO/DI is 4, thats it no more no less. A high quality prefilter so you don't plug the pores in the carbon block, a single high quality low micron carbon block that last s more than 300 to 1000 gallons like most ebay systems, a name brand RO membrane and thats not a 100 GPD Dow Filmtec nano filter which is only rated at 90% rejection and is not even approved for drinking water in the USA but is listed as "Pool and Spa use" by the ANSI/NSF, and a single vertical 20 oz DI filter. Thats it. You don't want or need two carbons or two little horizontal hollow tubes they call DI filters.

If its a question of money, the better reef quality system wil save you in the long run every time, its pay me now or pay me later, and later , and later. Better filters perform better and last longer thus fewer replacements from day one.

If you have the 100 GPD Dow Filmtec you may want to think about a better membrane in the future. I don't thing they use Dow though but use GE which is comparable to a 75 GPD Dow. They both produce 75 GPD at 50 psi, 90 GPD at 60 psi and 100 GPD at 65 psi though moste people don't have 65 psi at the tap.

 

Ro/di

OK, so what membrane would you recommend? Didn't you say you ran a Filmtec?

What about Carbon? What do you know about carbon as in reactors or even carbon for passive flow in a sump?

 

My personal is a SpectraSelect from Spectrapure which is basically an individually hand tested and guaranteed 98+% rejection rate 75 GPD Dow Filmtec. Spectrapure also has batch tested and treated membranes on sale here:


SpectraPure Customer Appreciation SALE! 20% - 50% off

You won't find a better membrane for the money anywhere. The 90 GPD is the way to go.

As far as off the shelf dry membranes my choice would be the 75 GPD Dow Filmtec or a 100 GPD GE Water (Osmonics) . They are basically identical in every way, they both produce the same 75 GPD at 50 psi, 90 at 60 and 100 at 65 psi at 96-98% rejection but do not carry written guarantees like the Spectra Select membranes do nor are they treated with the proprietary system Spectrapure uses which improves both rejection rate and GPD.

There are lots of good carbons out there. Places like Bulk Reef sell it in quantity at a good savings. You want to watch some vendors though as they could be using regenerated carbon which is not good. Large water treatment plants remove and recycle carbon every year or two and it can be regenerated and sold to unsuspecting people whoc think they are geting a good deal. My plant would only buy virgin carbon but we did return our old carbon to be regenerated.