RO unit

[orbit]

hi

i am current using a tap water filter to fill up my fish tank.

i was wonder if anyone know any ro unit for under 100?

i was look around and found this on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/6-stage-125GPD-R...QQcmdZViewItem

anyone used this?any good?

any suggestion will help!

Thanks
Oribt

[an411]

Personally I wouldn't get this one I think a RO/DI is something that you dont want to skimp on. Check this

http://www.melevsreef.com/ro_di.html

http://www.thefilterguys.biz/ro_di_systems.htm

[marduc]

Any savings up front for a cheaper RO/DI unit will quickly be lost due to quicker cartridge exhaustion and replacement times.

Spend the money, get a good quality unit from a reputable source (The RC sponsors are all highly touted, personally I went with spectrapure, performance is amazing!), and you will save a lot of money in short order, as well as have superior performance. I get a 99.5+% rejection rate from my RO cartridge, this equals a huge boost in the longevity for the DI resins behind it in comparison to a RO cartridge with even a 95% rate (I forget the figure, but it is something like for every 5% increase in RO efficiency your DI lifespan doubles).

Also make sure to get a pressure guage and an inline TDS meter, these are critical to monitor performance, and to tell you when a cartridge needs replaced.

edit: it was bugging me so i researched my stats.. for every 2% rejection rate increase in RO efficiency DI lifespan doubles, this adds up very fast!!

[mg426]

I deal with the filter guys, they have been awesome to work with.

[kevin2000]

That unit will work just fine and produce water with zero TDS which is exactly what your going to get from more expensive units.

[RGRDGR]

I got mine from melevsreef works good fair price

[AZDesertRat]

Kevin you cannot make a blanket statement like it will produce 0 TDS water, in most cases it will not. If you have very low tap water TDS it may produce 0 TDS for a period of time. In average or worse than average TDS waters it probably will not ever produce 0 TDS due to its poor quality components and lack of design.
Expect to spend right at $150-$230 for a good reef quality system that will perform as advertised and not need upgrades.
I personally am not a fan of inline TDS meters since they are not as accurate nor as handy as a handheld. A decent handheld will blow an inline away every time. Inlines are not temperature compensated and the readings can be significantly off if the air temperature and water temperature are not exactly the same, which they never seem to be.

I also own a Spectrapure unit but thye may not be for everybody. I would suggest the first thing you do is get your water quality info from your water provider to see what kind of unit you will need. If the tap water is very good to begin with a less expensive unit may work even though it may cost you more in maintenance and upkeep as well as more frequent DI replacements. If the water quality is not so good don't even consider anything under $150-$160 as it will not do the job nearly as well or as economically as a good unit will.

[kevin2000]

I have owned a number of different RO, RO/DI units over the yrs in at least 3 states with dramatially different water quality. The price and bells/whistles has varied but the actual peformance of the units hasn't been all that different. Further ... the parts are pretty generic and every filter on your unit is going to need to be switched eventually and if your unahppy you can always upgrade the filter.

[AZDesertRat]

Thats very true but in almost all cases upgrading costs more than buying the good unit the first time. I went down that road years ago when I bought my first Watts Premier unit. By the time I did all the upgrades I had much more invested.

[ReefGirlSara]

What's a good TDS meter? What is the main benefit to buy a $50 TDS meter, like the HM COM-100? I was hoping to spend like $20-$25. Is in-line the way to go, or what?

[AZDesertRat]

Inline is not the way to go, they are not accurate. If you get a chance to look at one up close notice on the fatter part of the probes there is a little rectangular hole in the side. Inside that hole is the temperature probe that is measuring air temperature and not water temperature. I need to dig up the temperature correction chart again but needless to say the readings can be significantly off. Handheld is the better more accurate option.
The reason for the better handheld like the COM-100 is it can be calibrated in three different ways allowing for extreme low end (or high end if that is what you want) accuracy. The reason for this is DI resin, when it is nearing exhaustion, releases weakly ionized substances back into the treated water. Some weakly ionized substances are phosphates, silicates and nitrates so you want to know when you are starting to read anything other than 0 TDS so you can change the cartridge or resin in a timely manner. A inline can be reading 0 but the accurate handheld could easily be reading an 8 or 10 which would be the true reading.

[kevin2000]

Rat

I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree.

I think that unit will work fine in the vast majority of this country and further believe that promoting expensive units is not cost effective (even in phoenix).

[AZDesertRat]

The units I recommend with the possible exception of the MaxCap are not expensive at $150 to maybe $250. As with everything, you get what you pay for. In this case what you are getting are things like a TDS meter, inline pressure gauge, RO bypass valve, autoshutoff valve, better quality housings and fittings etc. There is value in all of these things and they cost money. With RO systems cheap almost always equals Chinese imports of questionable quality. Look at all the trouble we are having with lead and poor quality parts, its in the newspaper every day. The filters that sell for less almost all come from there and are knockoffs of better quality components and systems. Thats a fact of life and we have brought it upon ourselves by looking for the cheap way out.
I have not even mentioned the quality or lack of quality in the vast majority of the imported membranes, prefilters, carbons and resins. I am lucky enough to have access to lots of studies and bench testing reports and know that I am right here. Unless you can see these things side by side or see the results of long term testing you will probably continue to doubt me but I am speaking the truth. If there were quality components for much less don't you think all the vendors would be using them? Companies like Spectrapure spend untold thousands on research and development and have full time staff just for that purpose. They also have dozens of beta testers all around the country doing long term testing of current and future products so they can provide only the best. You don't see the knockoffs doing this.

Are you even aware that a large percentage of the cheap units do not even carry a NSF/ANSI certification for sale in the US? They know they would never meet the strict standards and testing requirememts so they make do with unsuspecting people on e-bay and other sites like that until someone catches up to the m and shuts them down. Codes, standards and certifications are there for a reason and that reason is to protect the general public like you and I.