RO/DI unit?

[yellowwatchmen]

I am looking at getting an RO/DI unit. I am wanting to use it for both drinking and aquarium. Are there any suggestions? And is there any difference between the RO units they make for drinking and the ones for aquariums. I know Purely H2o has two different systems one for drinking and one for aquariums.

Thanks, Brian

[Blown 346]

RO units are RO units. They can be used for both drinking water and aquariums as they will still remove the irons, metals. The filter guys have alot of options.

[Trini]

Your ice cubes will come out crystal clear with RO water.;-)

[shellshocked]

No difference other than capacity. It does not cost much to bump up the gal per hour do yourself a favor and make sure to get one with a decent throughput. Also when they rate them it is under the most favorable conditions and you will likely get a lower rate. One with a DI filter included is good. Also do you shopping homework - you can find some good deals and you can pay through the nose - they are all basically the same.

[yellowwatchmen]

What do you guys think about these?
http://www.thefilterguys.biz/ro_di_systems.htm (2nd down)
http://www.twopartsolution.com/index...roducts_id=182
http://www.melevsreef.com/ro_di.html
Which one would be best for me?
Or if you have any other suggestions let me know.
And I can disconnect the DI for drinking.

[mg426]

I have had very good luck dealing with the fiter guys, they know what they are doing, have great customer service, and will help you with any special application needs that you may have.

[yellowwatchmen]

DO the horizontal DI do as well as the vertical? If the vertical are better I can get the one from two parts or melev since the one from the filter guys is $160 and the one from two parts is $149 but melves is $169 but it is 100gpd But I don't know If I will need that much.

[yellowwatchmen]

bump

[njdevilsfan]

buy it from melv
he deserves your buisness for the thousands of hours of free advice he shares with all of us reefers
i got 1 love it soooo easy to install

[Pmolan]

I keep reading that the Horiz DI are POS. Refillable vertical seems to be the way to go. As for drinking water, I think it gets split right before the DI. I just got a filter guys RODI.. It blows my old "budget" one away..

[qfrisco]

I will be ordering one this week and have seen Marc's (Melev), as well as ones from airwaterice.com (http://www.airwaterice.com/product/..._new_style.html), but am focusing on this one from Filter Direct: http://filterdirect.com/catalog/pro...&products_id=30

Does anyone have any experience with the ones from Filter Direct? I think they are made by Water General, and I see what look like identical/similar models on Ebay for about $110.

[yellowwatchmen]

The links don't work.

[yellowwatchmen]

so I think I narrowed it down
(1)
http://www.thefilterguys.biz/ro_di_systems.htm (3rd)
http://www.thefilterguys.biz/ro_di_add-ons.htm (last)

(2)
http://www.purelyh2o.com/product.php...cat=249&page=1
http://www.purelyh2o.com/product.php...cat=281&page=1

(3)
http://www.melevsreef.com/ro_di.html

(4)
http://www.airwaterice.com/product/1...er_75_GPD.html

[jefnalyssa]

Tagging along I plan on buying soon.

[yellowwatchmen]

...

[KCZoanthid]

I bought the 6-stage RO/Dual DI unit from Filter Direct.

I love it. Puts out about 2.5g in 1/2hr. Thats right where it is rated at-- around 100g per day +/-

I'm using a pump to boost my water pressure. I live in an apartment and my water pressure was very low at about 35psi. Bought the pump from Filter Direct and now the unit works like it should.

This is NOT a design flaw with the unit. Most RO units require very high pressure to work correctly. They will work with less pressure-- but they won't put out the GPD that you expect.

http://filterdirect.com/catalog/prod...products_id=29

[Justdrew]

Go for 75 gpd membrane. It is different from the 100gpd and works better (higher rejection rate).

[qfrisco]

Originally posted by yellowwatchmen
The links don't work.

Sorry - try these:

airwaterice.com: http://www.airwaterice.com/product/1...new_style.html

filterdirect.com: http://filterdirect.com/catalog/prod...products_id=30

From what I've been able to research, the filter direct product above is the same as what's being sold on Ebay as a product from Water General. Here's one of the auction links with a Buy It Now price of $115. http://cgi.ebay.com/WaterGeneral-RO6...QQcmdZViewItem

There also appears to be a decent number of reefers that have this unit and seem to be happy with it. Just Google "watergeneral 6100 reef" .

I'll probably be ordering one of these today.

[Kermit]

I have one from the filter guys. Super easy to hook up, works great. Get the 75gpd membrane and make your drinking water seperate from the system to avoid tds creep. I run my membrane for about five minutes to flush the filter of excess tds then I store my drinking water in another container. The drinking water branches off of the main line before the DI. I actually flush it before making aquarium water to save on resin.

[illal]

there is definitly a differance between drinking and aquarium water.... the drinking water goes thru and extra stage to improve the taste i got mine from here i got the one thats 100 gpd and it has dual outputs for both drinking and aquarium water so only the drinking water goes thru the final stage.... for $100 IMO you cant beat it

[yellowwatchmen]

Originally posted by illal
there is definitly a differance between drinking and aquarium water.... the drinking water goes thru and extra stage to improve the taste i got mine from here i got the one thats 100 gpd and it has dual outputs for both drinking and aquarium water so only the drinking water goes thru the final stage.... for $100 IMO you cant beat it

Which one did you get? Do you like it? Are there any drawbacks to your system?

[RBCJay]

Hey watchman, search for some posts by AZDesertRat. He will steer you in the right direction-he knows this stuff.
Jay

[AZDesertRat]

Whatever you do don't get one from Filters Direct or Pure Water Club. They are a low quality drinking water system at best. Not even in the same ballpark as a reef system. You will spend much more trying to upgrade that system trying to make it perform than what you would have spent initially on a good reef quality system.

A good reef system will have several distinct and important differences that become very obvious.

1. They will all have a true 10" canister type vertical DI system that can hold 20 oz of DI resin. The advantages of these is they hold more resin and have a much better flow pattern so all water comes into contact with the resin so no short circuiting or channelling.

2. They will tell you up front in writing what the micron ratig of each filter is. No secrets. If they don't tell you its a 0.6 or 0.5 micron Matrix Chlorine Guzzler carbon block you can bet it isn't! Cheap no name carbons can be completely exhausted in as little as 300 total gallons of water, thats 240 gallons of waste and only 60 gallons of good! Now you see why lots of the cheap units include 2 carbons, they are trying to make them look impressive yet they still only treat as little as 600 total gallons effectively, 480 waste and only 120 gallons of good. Do not fall into that trap. A SINGLE 0.5 micron Matrix carbon by itself will treat 20,000 gallons of water. Just one.

3. They will tell you what membrane it contains. Normally reef systems use a Dow Filmtec 75 GPD RO membrane and they will say so with no questions. Cheaper systems may use a no name membrane from Taiwan or China that is not even ANSI/NSF rated for sale in the US. As them for the brand, GPD, Rejection rate and the ANSI/NSF certification data......Some may use a 100 GPD Dow Filmtec making you think you are getting something specila when in fat they just pulled one over on you. The Dow 100 is one of the worst membranes for this application. Thye are a 90% efficient nano filter not a 98% efficient RO filter. This is important since for every 2% you increase the RO efficiency you DOUBLE the life of your DI resin. ALWAYS get a 75 GPD Dow Filmtec if possible, if not then get no less than a 100 GPD GE Water or Applied Membranes RO membrane as they are basically identical to the 75 GPD Dow both in output GPD and in quality. Dow says 75 GPD at 50 psi and GE and Applied say 100 GPD at 65 psi. That 100 equals 75 GPDat 50 psi and Dows 75 GPD equals 100 GPD at 65 psi. No difference.

4. Reef units normally include a inline pressure gauge and some even include a TDS meter, prefferably a handheld model. Drinking water units do not include either in most cases.

[SimilanRocks]

I second that, dont buy chepo like I did
I spent a lot of time and $$$ to battle with HA and found out that the problem came from RODI unit. I needed to upgrade and costed more.

The vertical DI is better, 3x resin. You should get unit with pressure gauge, and TDS meter too. They don't add too much cost, and will help finding where the problem is. Without them you are blind not knowing what kind of water you put to the tank.

[yellowwatchmen]

AZDesertrat thank you for your response. What do you think about this?
http://www.purelyh2o.com/product.php...cat=249&page=1
and then add on this
http://www.purelyh2o.com/product.php...cat=281&page=1
Does any one know what size that tank is it doesn't say I am thinking 3.2gal.

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