Got me an R/O Buddy...

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Mcfly

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Dec 17, 2016
Messages
76
Location
Melbourne, FL
In Florida the gH of my tap water is a crunchy 358ppm. A far less than perfect environment for my Community tank. I decided to try the Reverse Osmosis route to lower the gH to under 200ppm, where the fish might not have that much of a mineral taste in their mouths.

I got the 100gpd R/O Buddy from the local fish store, and mounted it on a board so I can use it outside by the main water tap, then bring it inside to store it (out of the elements).

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SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

A note to anyone thinking about this... The EXTREMELY vague instructions call for 1/4" OD tubing (not supplied) for the inlet, waste outlet, and filtered outlet tubes. DO NOT use flexible clear 1/4" tubing... Your best bet is 1/4" OD icemaker tubing (semi-rigid). This type of tubing works great, and is BPA free. I got about 20ft of it for $.13/ft at the hardware store.

All three of the outlets come plugged with a red plastic plug. DON'T just yank it! First pull the little blue clip off. You have to push the collar at the base of the plug down as you pull the plug out! (NO instructions on this with the unit! :blink:)

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The picture on the box is the only 'direction' you get for what goes where, so here's where each hose is connected...

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On a positive note, all of the blue hoses are supplied and connected, and the
unit is pretty much pre-assembled. You will have to remove the blue hose from the top middle canister to remove the cap, to install the cartridge inside. They DID give some direction to do that... :rolleyes:

After my trials and tribulations on assembly, I finally got the unit filtering water. For 6 gallons of R/O Filtered water, I got about 24 gallons of waste water (est). This took a few hours to do. 100 Gallons Per Day averages out to maybe 4 gallons per hour with optimal water pressure, which by me is pretty much unheard of. Real time for me for 6 gallons was 2.5 hours. I keep the R/O filtered water in a 6 gallon water container.

I'll be introducing the R/O water gradually into the 60 gallon aquarium. I do a weekly water change of 10 gallons, whereby I'm adding two gallons of R/O water and 8 gallons of tap. When the gH stops dropping, I'll up the mix from 2/8 to 3/7...

So far in 3 weeks, I have seen the gH go from 322.2ppm to 268.5ppm. (Remember the 358ppm was straight tap water). I'm headed in the right direction!!! Hope this helps anyone considering this 'upgrade'.
 
Happy to help. The system works well once it's together.

It's easier than going to the LFS (11 miles away) for their
water... probably cheaper too.
 
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