ro unit

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tpaparazzo

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Aug 26, 2003
Messages
87
Location
Hartford CT
ok guys while my tank is cycling..Im alreaady sick of paying money for water for top offs etc..So Im looking at a ro unit..Im totally dumb about it all I know is that it produces clean water right??

So im looking at this on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2350192665&category=20755

Couple of questions..How the heck do you set one of these things up??Is there alot of plumbing etc...

So what happens. the ro tank gets filled up and then i add that water from the tank to a big garbage bucket or something to have spare water??

Some help on this would be appreciated, Im looking to buy one asap!

Thanks again guys
 
This is the same unit that I purchased a few weeks ago. Came with pretty good instructions for hooking up everything. I did not use the little tank or facet that came with it though. I also had to get a hose and some fittings from Home Depot to connect my garden hose into the input side of the unit. I then ran the output side directly into a 55 gallon rain barrel (My choice for holding the water because of the added insulation and toughness of the barrel over a standard trash can).
 
well come RO units come with a faucet adaptor that you screw into a faucet. Others come with what they call a sadle valve. This valve goes over your piping (pvc or copper) and you screw it down and a small neddle punctures the pipe and then you conect your RO feeder hose to that.

thats about all the plumbing you do as far as connecting it to your existing system. THen you have your drain line to go into a drain someplace and then you have your good water feed to go to your tank or storage vessle.
 
The plumbing is pretty easy depending on how you want to set the unit up. For setup under the sink, you have to tap into the cold water line running to the faucet. This is easily done as the RO should have all the necessary parts to do so. You will also have to tap into the "trap" on the drain line of the sink so that the water that is discharged from the RO unit can be removed. Remember, RO units are wasteful. For every 1 gallon of RO water produced, 4-5 gallons are wasted. This is why you must have a place to drain the discharge water to. Again, this is typically done on the drain line under the sink you are installing the unit under.


This is how mine is set up. I stick a 5 gallon bucket underneath the output of the RO unit and then let it rip. When the bucket is full, I transfer the water in a 45 gallon trash can to store the water.

My way is definitely the most labor intensive way to do it. A lot of people install the RO kit right next to their sump. Then they install a float switch that will trigger the RO unit to produce water when the water level in the sump drops to low. I would do this if I had a a water line anywhere near my tank. Unfortunately it is over 100 feet way...
 
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