RO system
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revhtree
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Bump for the RO experts!
Most of the ebay type units should be avoided. Many use imported "clone" components and filters or unknown quality and are not tested or rated by the ANSI/NSF for drinking water use in the US. Since the whole idea behind having a RO or RO/DI is high quality water and long filter life this is important.
A good reef quality RO/DI does not have to be expensive, you can get a high quality brand name system from one of the oldest names in the business for $120 and the top of the line system in the world is only $239 on sale right now.
Whatever you end up with look for several things including:
1. a low micron range sediment filter like 1.0 or even 0.5 microns and an absolute rated filter is better than a nominal rated filter
2. a single 1.0, 0.6 or 0.5 micron carbon block. The 0.6 or 0.5 is preferred since it will last up to 20,000 total gallons and is effective on either chlorine or chloramines
3. a 75 GPD Dow Filmtec, 100 GPD GE Water or 90 GPD Spectrapure RO membrane. Avoid the 100 GPD Dow Filmtec membrane at all costs, its the worst possible choice aside from the no name clones found in some of the ebay systems.
4. a full size 10" vertical refillable 20 oz DI cartridge and canister. The little horizontals are prone to short circuiting and channeling for poor treatment and water quality.
5. a capillary tube type flow restrictor is prefferable to a fixed type restrictor. You trim the capillary tube yourself based on your specific water conditions and we all know not everyones water is the same. The fixed type is ballpark close at best and you get what you get, since they are not adjustable.
6 other components you will find indispensible are an inline pressure gauge and a handheld TDS meter. Many units come with dual inline TDS meters and they are OK but not as accurate or as versatile as a good handheld. With the handheld you can test your tap water, your RO only , RO/DI, your storage or ATO container, the LFS, the vending machine, your buddies water etc. With the inline it is dedicated to two specific points and cannot be used portable since it depends on flow past the probe to work.
Names I would avoid include Water General, Filters Direct, AquaSafe, Coralife, Seachem. Watts Premier, Whirlpool and Sears.
Names I would consider are Spectrapure, Buckeye Field Supply, PurelyH2o, Melevs Reef and maybe H2oSplash.
Spectrapure has a sale on some excellent quality RO/DI systems for a limited time for $120, the fifth one down the page here:
Untitled Document
They also have a very good handheld TDS meter further down the page for $25.
www.buckeyefieldsupply.com has an excellent system with their BFS-161, 75 GPD Premium for $169 including a handheld TDS meter.
www.purelyh2o.com always has one of their Optima series on sale for around $150 plus the cost of a TDS meter.
www.melevsreef.com has Marc's Reefkeeper for around $200, its a little more than the others and uses the less popular but just as good 100 GPD GE Water RO membrane which is actually equal to the Dow 75 GPD membrane, they both do 75 GPD at 50 psi, 90 GPD at 60 psi and 100 GPD at 65 psi at 77 degrees F water temp and 4:1 waste ratio.
A good reef quality RO/DI does not have to be expensive, you can get a high quality brand name system from one of the oldest names in the business for $120 and the top of the line system in the world is only $239 on sale right now.
Whatever you end up with look for several things including:
1. a low micron range sediment filter like 1.0 or even 0.5 microns and an absolute rated filter is better than a nominal rated filter
2. a single 1.0, 0.6 or 0.5 micron carbon block. The 0.6 or 0.5 is preferred since it will last up to 20,000 total gallons and is effective on either chlorine or chloramines
3. a 75 GPD Dow Filmtec, 100 GPD GE Water or 90 GPD Spectrapure RO membrane. Avoid the 100 GPD Dow Filmtec membrane at all costs, its the worst possible choice aside from the no name clones found in some of the ebay systems.
4. a full size 10" vertical refillable 20 oz DI cartridge and canister. The little horizontals are prone to short circuiting and channeling for poor treatment and water quality.
5. a capillary tube type flow restrictor is prefferable to a fixed type restrictor. You trim the capillary tube yourself based on your specific water conditions and we all know not everyones water is the same. The fixed type is ballpark close at best and you get what you get, since they are not adjustable.
6 other components you will find indispensible are an inline pressure gauge and a handheld TDS meter. Many units come with dual inline TDS meters and they are OK but not as accurate or as versatile as a good handheld. With the handheld you can test your tap water, your RO only , RO/DI, your storage or ATO container, the LFS, the vending machine, your buddies water etc. With the inline it is dedicated to two specific points and cannot be used portable since it depends on flow past the probe to work.
Names I would avoid include Water General, Filters Direct, AquaSafe, Coralife, Seachem. Watts Premier, Whirlpool and Sears.
Names I would consider are Spectrapure, Buckeye Field Supply, PurelyH2o, Melevs Reef and maybe H2oSplash.
Spectrapure has a sale on some excellent quality RO/DI systems for a limited time for $120, the fifth one down the page here:
Untitled Document
They also have a very good handheld TDS meter further down the page for $25.
www.buckeyefieldsupply.com has an excellent system with their BFS-161, 75 GPD Premium for $169 including a handheld TDS meter.
www.purelyh2o.com always has one of their Optima series on sale for around $150 plus the cost of a TDS meter.
www.melevsreef.com has Marc's Reefkeeper for around $200, its a little more than the others and uses the less popular but just as good 100 GPD GE Water RO membrane which is actually equal to the Dow 75 GPD membrane, they both do 75 GPD at 50 psi, 90 GPD at 60 psi and 100 GPD at 65 psi at 77 degrees F water temp and 4:1 waste ratio.
revhtree
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Just the man I was hoping for! AZ do you have an RO radar or what? LOL!
No, I just scan all the reef forums a couple times a day. I'm a moderator on a few of them so checking the others at the same time is no big deal. Just love the hobby and try to help others avoid some of the mistakes I made when first starting. Having friends help me paid off more than once!
Redstag
Active Member
Exactly the brand I suggest staying far away from.
Lets use their own website and nalyze one of their units for a comparison to the components I suggested above.
First off, 1. they use a 5 micron nominal rated sediment filter. The problem here is 5 microns to 5 to 10 times larger particle size than I suggest using and nominal rated means it will only trap 60 to 80% of its rated size particles and larger. Absolute rated means the filter will trap 99% of the particles at its rated size and larger.
2. Notice it uses two carbon blocks and what should really raise a red flag is it does not state what micron size they are. This is important since some carbons are completely exhausted in as little as 300 total gallons, thats only 60 gallons of treated water and 240 gallons of waste at the normal 4:1 waste ratio since all wate rpasses through the first filters including the waste. They include two because they wear out quickly, especially with the coarse sediment filter. Carbon is made up of billions of tiny microscopic pores and you want to protect those pores so the ycan adsorb the chlorine and volatile chemicals.
3. Do you see a brand name or manufactures model number for the RO membrane anywhere? RED FLAG. You can bet if the yare not proud enough to tell you what they are providing its not a Dow Filmtec and its not the 96-98% rejection rate 75 GPD either since they say 100 GPD. NO SECRETS, NO SURPRISES!
4. Remember what I said about little horizontal DI filters? Water takes the path of least resistance so it travels along the bottom of the housings so not all resin gets used and then they stack two or three of them to try to cover up for that. Its NOT the same. For one, they only hold 6 to maybe 12 oz of resin and who knows how old the resin is since its not shipped in a vacuum sealed mylar foil bag for fresheness. It was probably loaded in a shipping container in Taiwan or China months ago so its shot before you even get it. DI resin has a shelf life of 6 months even when sealed properly and stored in a cool place like the back of the refrigerator. A full size 20 oz vertical refillable DI filter is much more efficient since for one you can pack the resin in the cartridge tightly and the cartridge fills from the bottom up so all water and resin come into contact with each other for good treatment. Resin shrinks slightly with use so even if you packed the little horizontal tube tight it will soon be bobbing around and inefficient.
5. It uses the low quality fixed flow restrictor instead of the better capillary tube, which only cost $5 by the way so its not like its phohibitively expensive.
6. No name non ANSI/NSF certified housings which are probably made of inferior quality plastic that gets brittle with age. Look at the photos and see the old style compression fittings. All the systems I suggested use the much better John Guest Speed fittings or MurLock fittings which are more leak proof and easy to use.
Then you read some of their literature and claims and it soon becomes apparent they are an importer and not building units from scratch here in the US.
Open up a few of the links I provided and look at the units side by side, I think you will be able to spot the differences. The cost to upgrade or rebuild one of the Filters Direct systems so it actually works far exceeds the cost a good reef quality system costs to begin with.
Lets use their own website and nalyze one of their units for a comparison to the components I suggested above.
First off, 1. they use a 5 micron nominal rated sediment filter. The problem here is 5 microns to 5 to 10 times larger particle size than I suggest using and nominal rated means it will only trap 60 to 80% of its rated size particles and larger. Absolute rated means the filter will trap 99% of the particles at its rated size and larger.
2. Notice it uses two carbon blocks and what should really raise a red flag is it does not state what micron size they are. This is important since some carbons are completely exhausted in as little as 300 total gallons, thats only 60 gallons of treated water and 240 gallons of waste at the normal 4:1 waste ratio since all wate rpasses through the first filters including the waste. They include two because they wear out quickly, especially with the coarse sediment filter. Carbon is made up of billions of tiny microscopic pores and you want to protect those pores so the ycan adsorb the chlorine and volatile chemicals.
3. Do you see a brand name or manufactures model number for the RO membrane anywhere? RED FLAG. You can bet if the yare not proud enough to tell you what they are providing its not a Dow Filmtec and its not the 96-98% rejection rate 75 GPD either since they say 100 GPD. NO SECRETS, NO SURPRISES!
4. Remember what I said about little horizontal DI filters? Water takes the path of least resistance so it travels along the bottom of the housings so not all resin gets used and then they stack two or three of them to try to cover up for that. Its NOT the same. For one, they only hold 6 to maybe 12 oz of resin and who knows how old the resin is since its not shipped in a vacuum sealed mylar foil bag for fresheness. It was probably loaded in a shipping container in Taiwan or China months ago so its shot before you even get it. DI resin has a shelf life of 6 months even when sealed properly and stored in a cool place like the back of the refrigerator. A full size 20 oz vertical refillable DI filter is much more efficient since for one you can pack the resin in the cartridge tightly and the cartridge fills from the bottom up so all water and resin come into contact with each other for good treatment. Resin shrinks slightly with use so even if you packed the little horizontal tube tight it will soon be bobbing around and inefficient.
5. It uses the low quality fixed flow restrictor instead of the better capillary tube, which only cost $5 by the way so its not like its phohibitively expensive.
6. No name non ANSI/NSF certified housings which are probably made of inferior quality plastic that gets brittle with age. Look at the photos and see the old style compression fittings. All the systems I suggested use the much better John Guest Speed fittings or MurLock fittings which are more leak proof and easy to use.
Then you read some of their literature and claims and it soon becomes apparent they are an importer and not building units from scratch here in the US.
Open up a few of the links I provided and look at the units side by side, I think you will be able to spot the differences. The cost to upgrade or rebuild one of the Filters Direct systems so it actually works far exceeds the cost a good reef quality system costs to begin with.
The BRS units are just OK, nothing special. For one, they do not even offer 0.5 or 1.0 micron sediment filters so the carbon block is not well protected. Other issues are they do not treat nor test their RO membranes for improved performance and they do not blend their own DI resin. They also do not use capillary tube flow restrictors. I would rate them a 7 on a scale of 1-10 since they would need modifications which cost additional money.
Dublo8
Community Member
One thing not mentioned is the use of non universal parts or parts that are difficult to source. Pretty much anything you can buy from the foster and smith catalog lol. They might work but if something happens to the housing or any other part they are impossible to replace unless you can find a used unit to scrap for parts. For the price BRS units aren't bad, I have one, but I use filters from other sources similar to what az mentioned. Spectrapure is highly rated in my book since all they do is water filtration and nothing else. BTW spectrapure usually has refurbished units for sale as well for around 45% off. But don't tell anybody I told you.
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Earlier I mentioned some units I would avoid. Several of those units use non standard RO membranes and thats why they are on the list. Sears, Whirlpool and many Watts Premier systems use uncommon membranes and a standard replacement membrane wil not fit in their housings. In addition to that many of the Watts Premier systems use non standard replacemnt filters in all housings so even a common sediment filter or carbon block will not work.
The industry standard RO membrane is the Dow Filmtec TW-30-1812 series. It can be anywhere from a 24 GPD to a 75 GPD, they are all the same physical size and one can be swapped for the other as long as you change the flow restrictor to one that matches the new membrane GPD. The GE 100 GPD RO membrane is the same size and configuration and can be used as a direct replacement since it is identical to the Dow Filmtec 75 GPD in all respects including 100 GPD at 65 psi. Dow says 75 GPD at 50 psi, GE says 100 GPD at 65, they are essentially the same just a different way of advertising. GE is a little optomistic since the average water pressure at the tap bationwide is more like 50 to 55 psi so Dow is more accurate in their advertising. PurelyH2o, AWI, Buckeye, BRS, Filter Guys, and many many more use an off the shelf dry 75 GPD Dow Filmtec membrane as their main staple. Spectrapure takes that same membrane but then treats it with a special proprietary process to improve its efficiency then tests it either in batches or individually with their Select series then guarantees its performance in writing to be better than 98%. My personal Spectrapure system is still at 99.35% rejection or removal efficiency after over 3 years of service and going strong. Thats RO only efficiency so the DI is just cruising.
The industry standard RO membrane is the Dow Filmtec TW-30-1812 series. It can be anywhere from a 24 GPD to a 75 GPD, they are all the same physical size and one can be swapped for the other as long as you change the flow restrictor to one that matches the new membrane GPD. The GE 100 GPD RO membrane is the same size and configuration and can be used as a direct replacement since it is identical to the Dow Filmtec 75 GPD in all respects including 100 GPD at 65 psi. Dow says 75 GPD at 50 psi, GE says 100 GPD at 65, they are essentially the same just a different way of advertising. GE is a little optomistic since the average water pressure at the tap bationwide is more like 50 to 55 psi so Dow is more accurate in their advertising. PurelyH2o, AWI, Buckeye, BRS, Filter Guys, and many many more use an off the shelf dry 75 GPD Dow Filmtec membrane as their main staple. Spectrapure takes that same membrane but then treats it with a special proprietary process to improve its efficiency then tests it either in batches or individually with their Select series then guarantees its performance in writing to be better than 98%. My personal Spectrapure system is still at 99.35% rejection or removal efficiency after over 3 years of service and going strong. Thats RO only efficiency so the DI is just cruising.
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cactusmoe
Community Member
Hey AZ, man u r just full of freakin ro knowledge. I got another question for u. I am lookin real hard at the spectra system u suuggested, I will probably b getting it next week. Anywho, to my question. I got a tds meter and the water out of my tap has ranged between 90 to 100. How long do u thnk the system would last before replacement? I have a 55g with 20g sump. I know this is kindda a stupid question but I have to convince my wife it is worth the money
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With any RO or RO/DI system regardless of who sells it, you should change the sediment andcarbon block filters every 6 months so they protect the RO membrane and DI resin. With the Spectrapure unit, it uses 0.5 micron replacement filters and the sediment filter is absolute rated meaning it traps 99% of everything in its micron rating versus 60 to 80% for a normal nominal rated filter so its not unusual to go 5-7 or even up to 10 years on the RO membrane if you do the suggested maintenance. The average system you find will go 18 to 36 months since they use coarser micron rated nominal rated replacement filters.
My current MaxCap system is over 3 years old and still giving me 99.35% removal efficiency from the RO only and I'm only on my third DI cartridge since new. Thats with a tap wate rTDS of over 600 so at 100 it should last a long long time.
My current MaxCap system is over 3 years old and still giving me 99.35% removal efficiency from the RO only and I'm only on my third DI cartridge since new. Thats with a tap wate rTDS of over 600 so at 100 it should last a long long time.
cactusmoe
Community Member
Awesome. That is exactly what I wanted/needed to hear. One last question. I don't have a real good place to set one of these up except by my washer and I have never seen one in use before. So what I am wondering is are they strong enough for me to b able to run a water line a far distance? Or would I b better off putting it on some plywood and moving that instead. Does that make any sense?
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bige
Valuable Member
Thats funny.. I read this to my wife to show her that the cheap one on ebay wouldn't work. So now she's getting me a spectra. Everything Az said makes sense to me.
I asked my lfs about their ro water, they said it is a no waste di system. That sounds sketchy to me. So i'm just gonna make my own water.
DI only systems do not last as long since its the RO membrane that does 90 to 98% of the work. With an RO/DI the DI only does 2 to 10% of the removal so lasts much longer and performs better. There are things DI is not particularly good at removing just as there are with RO so it really takes both, plus the carbon block prefiltration with the RO/DI to be effective.
I have my RO/DI mounted above the laundry sink in my garage and fed from the washing machine cold water supply. The water goes in to a Rubbermaid trashcan then gets pumped to the dining room 35 feet away with my ATO system. I would recommend keeping the RO/DI closer to the water supply and run a longer treated line if it comes to that. You want as much pressure as possible feeding it for best rejection or removal efficiency.
I have my RO/DI mounted above the laundry sink in my garage and fed from the washing machine cold water supply. The water goes in to a Rubbermaid trashcan then gets pumped to the dining room 35 feet away with my ATO system. I would recommend keeping the RO/DI closer to the water supply and run a longer treated line if it comes to that. You want as much pressure as possible feeding it for best rejection or removal efficiency.
cactusmoe
Community Member
Well I finally was able to order the ro system. Placed order Sunday and it arrived Thursday morning. Looks like in about a week I will finally b able to start stocking my tank!
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