RO/DI question, Coralife pure flo? worth it

[yankeeslover]

thanks for helping.. I have been considering purchasing a small RO/DI unit. I have been doing my WC by using Primo water from Walmart but I'm tired of running back and forth and tired of buying there distilled water daily for my topoffs.. I only have a 46 gallon tank so I don't need a lot of water. I am very new to all this. I have a PPM reader that I take with me to Walmart when I fill the primo.. It is always 0ppm..... I have some questions
I found a used coralife pure flo II 50gpd unit on craigslist..someone selling for $30.00...says the filters have filtered aprox 500 gallons in total and are still good. Has anyone had any luck on used RO/DI units? at this price it looks like a steal. Is this a good brand unit? and what will the difference be between using this three stage ro/di compared to the primo water that is also RO water? is this better?
How do these things hookup? I have 3 five gallon water jugs that I used for the primo water, can I just hook the unijt up on my outdoor faucet and fill up my 5 gallon jugs? as one gets full, can I then swap out the other, once all three are full can I then shut the water off and bring the unit indoors for storage? I'm sorry, I'm so new to this.
I want to start getting my nitrates down some... they always range around 20-30 ppm.. I'm doing weekly changes of 15 gallons per week.. if I had my own unit I can probably do changes twice per week and get the nitrates down in the single digits.... thanks again for helping a newbie...

 

[scelona]

I dont know anything about that particular unit. You want to make sure the filters are 1 micron sediment and carbon filters, not 5 micron like some drinking units use. The DI part is where there is the biggest difference in quality in my opinion. You want the water to flow through the DI canisters vertically, not horizontally, so all the DI resin is in contact with the water. So as long as it meets these requirements it is probably fine.

The units are usually very easy to hook up to an outdoor faucet. There are adaptors that screw right on to the faucet and feed the unit. There are then two output lines, one that will produce the RODI water and one that will produce waste water that is great for watering your garden with. And moving the unit inside and outside shouldnt be too painful but it is really nice to have setup somewhere permanently.