Dumb RO/DI question

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dralarms

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Sep 7, 2003
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Location
Athens, TN.
Ok I got my RO/DI unit installed, the drinking water part sure does taste good :mrgreen: . However I have what some would deem a dumb question, How do I get enough DI water to do a change on my tanks? The thing only makes about 3 gal at a time. What does most people here do? Do you just let if fill up the tank and then empty it out? Or od you just run the hose into a bucket (or garabge can) and let it run until full? I'm afraid to walk away from this thing. I need the water but don't have time to watch it trickle into the bucket. :roll:
 
od you just run the hose into a bucket (or garabge can) and let it run until full?
Yep. One of these nights, run the hose to a 5 gallon bucket when you sit down to watch your evening news or Prime Time shows, and check on it every half hour/hour. Once you get an idea of how fast it produces the water you can just start it when you know you'll be around again when your container is full.

I have a 30 gallon rubber maid container. When I'm low on RO i turn on the filter before I leave for work, and turn it off when I get home that night.
 
I keep a trash can filled with RO/DI water and keep a lid on top to keep out impurities in the air.

However, you don't want to remove the water out of your unit when you aren't using it. If the RO membrane dries out, it ruins them.
 
Ok thanks that makes sense. Olny problem is I use the drinking water for drinking and also for coffee & stuff and can't get drinking water while I'm trying to get water out of the DI filter. :roll:
 
you don't want to remove the water out of your unit when you aren't using it. If the RO membrane dries out, it ruins them.

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I had heard that, I leave mine hooked up all the time so that's not a problem "(or am I missing something) 8O
 
yes, there should be a ball valve on top of the storage tank, turn it to off, when making RO/DI water for the tank. That storage tank is pressueized and will move the water through the DI filter too quickly.
 
Ok thanks that makes sense. Olny problem is I use the drinking water for drinking and also for coffee & stuff and can't get drinking water while I'm trying to get water out of the DI filter.

I have a couple 1 gallon water jugs I keep full of the RO drinking water and keep in the fridge. If I'm making RO/DI water I'll make a pot of coffee first ;)
 
Possibly, what is the TDS? FWIW, Ido not hesitate to use the straight RO water out of the drinking water unit when I don't have DI made up. The TDS of my RO (only) is about 15. So the water is probably fine, but maybe not as low in TDS as it would be if you'd turned off the drinking water tank ;)
 
It's not as good as it might have been. Run a phosphate test on your output water to see. However, it's still a whole lot better than tap water. The DI resins require the proper contact time for the anions and cations to do their thing as good as possible.
 
You should be able to pick one up for 25-30 from one of our sponsors


Thanks. Oh BTW it took 1.5 hrs to fill up a 5 gal bucket. :roll: Guess I'll be keeping more buckets of water around. 8O (My wife is gonna kill me).
 
Oh and BTW, I have been drinking "filtered" water for years. Got a Pur filter and have used it for a long time. But I must say I have never tasted water this good. What beats all is The Pur filter cost me about 100 bux (under counter model) and I got this RO/DI unit for 135 shipped. :mrgreen:
 
Your getting about 80 gpd from your unit, not sure what it's rated for, but it's a guestimation, product rate is effected by water temp and pressure. Optimally you want the water temp about 75-80* and 80 psi.
 
It's rated at 110 gpd. But that's ok. BTW the notification I got from your reply here had this message. "WARNING(virus check bypassed): What does that mean? :?
 
I would imagine it means your virus protection did not scan that notification, that message should be on your end not on ours.
 
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