RO/DI like watching paint dry...

[JeffGil]

I just got a 75GDP RO/DI 5 stage system to start filling up a 72g bowfront and man...it's like watching paint dry! This thing cost around $250 dollars and I'd be finished filling it up with distilled water from the grocery store at this point for the same amount of money! The filter itself was about $160, but after you add in the extra parts it's closer to $250. (I know that in the long run this thing will save me money--just ranting right now sorry). It's been going now for around 4 hrs and has pumped out around 5 gallons of filtered water--and about 5g of waste water is going down the drain for every filtered gallon. Is this normal? This means that I'm paying for around 430 gallons of water to fill up a 72g tank tonight?! Not such an effective filter maybe. Here I was thinking it was overkill to buy a filter that produced more water a day than my biggest tank could handle lol

This is the first time I've used one of these filters and right now I have it hooked up to my garden hose. The water pressure is fine, but the filtered water is trickling out irritatingly slow. Is this normal? Eventually I'll hook it up to a bathroom sink connection, but to fill up the tank tonight I'm just using a 15 foot garden hose. Will hooking it straight into the water line later speed it up?

When I ordered the filter I also ordered replacement filter cartridges for it and since one of the filter chambers was empty when I received it, I stuck in one of my 'replacement' filters that didn't look like either of the two already inserted...please don't tell me that one of those chambers is supposed to be empty?! If I disconnect the DI filter chamber will this go faster? Should I even do that?

I'm guessing that I just need to be patient and let it do its thing, but I'm afraid if I leave it going all night (it's draining into the 72g right now) it will perk up all of a sudden for some unknown reason and flood my living room! Doesn't look like it's going to any time soon though from the looks of things.

 

[surf_buddy]

Your RO/DI will not speed up, and if you have a 75 gpd system and a 72 gal tank... then you are looking at almost 24 hours to fill the tank. The speed I beleive is determined by the filters and the water pressure, but in no way will it exceet 75 GPD... So rest easy.

I have the 50 GPD system from TFGs and I love it. Mine drains into a rubbermaid trash can with a plunger that shuts off the system when the can is full. That way I always have water when needed. Oh and your wast water output is normal. Do you have a pressure gauge for your system? If so what is it reading? I should be around 50 PSI.

 

[El Salvador]

Doesn’t worry be happy

It’s perfectly normal for it to drip that slowly. Do not go to the store and add store water or you will have more problems then you ask for.
I recommend for the empty filter chamber you had to add an extra DI unit. I add a 2nd one to my filter system and I having great success with my SPS. I don’t need to do water changes every two weeks; it can go for 3 weeks now with out any problems.

You my friend are in hobby that you need extreme pensions for you and your tank friends to be successful. Take your time and be pension, I know we all want everything to be full and big and all the nice colors of the rainbow, but it takes time. Just about everyone that you ask will tell you to wait about one month to a month and half before adding anything to your system. I am that will wait 3 to 5 month before adding any corals to my tanks. It’s ok to add 1 or 3 fish to your tank once it has been up for 2 month. Start slow and make small changes. It’s easer on you and your system to do small change, Rader then large changes.

SURF BUDDY.


How are things with your system?

My rock work dint worked out like I had hope. I lost 3 SPS colonies. But I do like having less rock in my system.

Take care and happy reefing

 

[VisionsSS]

Water Pressure and Temperature are the two key factors here. You should be getting closer to a 4:1 waste:good water ratio.

If you do not have a pressure gauge it would be worth getting. Unfortunatley if you pressure is low like mine (40psi) then you really should look into a RO booster pump. Ideally you should be pushing closer to 70psi through you RO.

Also Temperature makes a difference. Ideally you should be pushing about 78F through your RO. You can easily handle this by taking 25 or more feet of RO tubing and coiling it in a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with waste water, suspend a small heater in there set to 78F or so and connect this line between your supply and RO input. Depending on how often you make water you may leave this heater on throughout the winter or just fire it up a day before water change time.

Also no matter how many alarms you set and how many times you check if you rely on manually shutting off your RO a flood is bound to get you.

check out www.thefilterguys.biz for RO accesories and info. Awesome customer service and very helpful.

 

[JeffGil]

Thanks all!

Yeah, it's looking like it's doing its thing...just slow. It's up to about 1/7th of a tank now...I'm going to bed. We've got a 12g and two 20g's going right now and everything is rocking, but I want to get them moved into the 72g! I'll post some pics when it's up and running. We're running out of room to put things in the other tanks!

I've got a ton of gauges to hook up tomorrow to get all the TDS and PSI stuff, but just needed a sanity check on the slow drip rate and it looks like it is expected. What exactly is waste water from an RO/DI anyway...shouldn't that water be filtered and not wasted?!?!? 5x the amount of water filtered wasted and sent down the drain seems...well wasteful to me.

I'm going to try the heated water trick tomorrow as I'm sure it won't be full any time soon. The water is pretty cold coming in from the water hose.

 

[VisionsSS]

Waste water is basically concentrated water. You can pretty much do anything with it to not waste it (exept put in your tank). Plants love it, some top off pools and ponds, some use it for doing laundry, flushing toilets, you could even drink it although it doesn't taste very good - maybe some Kool-aid would help .

 

[Scooterman]

Once the membrane fully saturates It will produce more water, also good pressure is important, 65psi in or more is ideal.

 

[JeffGil]

OK I got the parts and hooked up the RODI to my cold water sink pipe and stuck the waste water tube down the drain (under the sink). I checked the pressure with it set up that way and it was only around 55 psi. To get the tank filled faster, and with warmer water, I hooked the intake tube to the sink faucet and used a thermometer to make sure it was around 78 degrees. The pressure straight off the sink is around 52psi so not much of a difference and I figure using warmer water will make the filter go faster maybe. If nothing else, it saves me time trying to warm up a ton of water in the tank.

It's still going fairly slow, but faster than when it was hooked up to the garden hose at least. Would hooking in an aqua lifter do any good? It's not going so slow that I'm willing to spend a bunch of $$$ on an RO booster pump and I'm really only going to use this to keep my auto top-off full so it won't be going all the time once the tank is filled up.

(the tank is around 1/2 full now btw lol)

 

[VisionsSS]

Yeah I wouldn't spend the $100 on the booster if your getting 55psi. The faucet mixed with hot will work just make sure it doesn't get much hotter than that. I wouldn't mess with the aqualifter. It really wont do anything.