Ro ?

circusink22

New member
A friend of mine is starting a reef tank and was pricing RO units he said he saw them at lows and wanted to know if they are ok to use, I was not sure i told him i bought mine from a LFS, anyone know if there is a diffrence.
 
It all depends on the unit that he is looking at. All of the RO units that you will see at Lowes, Home Depot, Menards.....are just RO units & are for drinking.

For a tank you need a RO/DI unit. If you buy a RO unit from Lowes, your going to need to buy a DI stand alone unit to add to the RO filter. It may end up costing more money then just buying the correct RO/DI unit in the first place.

A Ocean Reef +1 RO/DI unit from the FilterGuys is only $199.00
 
Without the DI filter your not going to get a 0.0 TDS reading, and the 0.0 TDS is what you want for a tank
 
If your friend is on city water with chlorine and/or chloramine added, he will also need pre-carbon filters. The DI filter will take out many nasty things found in water that RO will not alone. The sediment, pre-carbon and DI filters will prolong your membrane life also (RO membranes are not cheap). That said, I agree with Flipper62.
 
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There is usually nothing wrong with most of the small under the counter units sold by Home Depot and Lowes etc accept that they are small capacity units. In some respects they are better as a RO unit produces higher quality water at a more effiecient rate when run for a long period versus many short periods of time. However some of the small units have very small prefilters (sediment and Carbon) and those would need to be changed quite often when producing the volumes water used by most reef tanks. Avoid units that have screw on prefilters. Buy units with housings that hold replaceable cartridges. With small tanks the small Home Depot RO filters might even work best for a lot of people. However, as long as the filters elements are at least 10 inches long they are considered full size prefilters.

The efficiency ratings and the rejection ratings are usually the same for the small units just the volumes produced are lower. Reef Central has several Sponsors listed by link from the Home page and they all can provide larger RO, RODI or DI filters at good prices. I would recommend that you use two DI filters inline following your RO filter.

IMO Stay away from SpectraPure unless you like more than you need at much higher prices than justifiable. Their filters are like paying for a Ferrari,receiving only a Mercedes when only needing a Chevy to drive a block to buy a news paper. All the other Sponsors (ie The Filter Guys, Bulk Reef Supply etc.) will sell you comparable products much cheaper, but would more likely just discourage such purchases of unneeded high end products..
 
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Anything under 5 TDS is fine IMO - head over to simplydiscus.com and talk to Randal, he sells 6 stage RO/DI units for somthing like 200 bucks, including a float valve to mount into a container so you don't have to deal with constantly monitoring your supply.

SpectraPure probably make the best units available - depending on how much money you're putting into your system and how long you plan on staying in the hobby it's always to go with the best equipment.

Also keep in mind that the lower end units will waste a lot of water - for every 10 gallons you'll get a gallon, which is great if you keep african cichlids or have a garden you need to water...

Check out MarineDepot and look into the SpectraPure MaxCap RO/DI System, 90gpd w/ Pressure Gauge & Purity Monitor - very good system for the price. Tells you what the TDS of your water is going in and coming out, built into the unit.


Buying the cheap stuff is only going to waste your money in the long run when you invest in all these beautiful corals and decide you want them looking their best.
 
ya i told him not too worry about money when it comes to this stuff and just be patiant and save $
I always believed you get what you pay for
thanks guys
 
It is not uncommon in the trade to get less than what you pay for especially at a LFS as floor space and labor does cost a good sum of money, but there is even less sense in buying much more than you need and paying to much for what you get to boot as in buying Spectrapure.
 
ya I overpaid for a light at a LFS this was also before i had the internet and pretty much my only option at the time, I told him to look around on the net some times i see ro/di s for sale on auction sites. research research research...... and youll find what ya need at a good price
 
It can be beneficial to develope a good relationship with your favorite LFS and see if they'll price match on internet pricing.

I've got that deal going with one of mine - and I usually pay a few extra bucks, but it's important to support small business in this hobby to keep it alive :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14833879#post14833879 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by M0oN
It can be beneficial to develope a good relationship with your favorite LFS and see if they'll price match on internet pricing.

I've got that deal going with one of mine - and I usually pay a few extra bucks, but it's important to support small business in this hobby to keep it alive :)


but it's important to support small business in this hobby to keep it alive :)

+1
 
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