RO water storage.

[Anonymous]

I am setting my tank up, was supposed to be done by now but the tank builder fell ill, i eventually got my sump and the guy had made it to the wrong dimensions. He left for a holiday the next day and only gets back on Thursday. I fitted my RO unit the other day and left it running for 2 days. I have a 100L plastic bin and as my sump should be here in about a weeks time can i start producing RO water and storing it in the can so that when the tank comes i have started producing water so it will not take as long to fill my tank. Is there any problems with leaving for this period of time? Before i put the water in the tank should a put an air pump in the container for a while? I have bought a 50G a day unit, the problem is the water pressure here is 25psi a the water quality is poor. My unit is producing 15-17G per day, is this a common problem?

 

[Anonymous]

You can store RO water for a while without any issues, and yes you should use an air pump for at least 24 hrs before you use it to make saltwater. Adding air raises the PH of the water and helps to buffer it. As far as how much your RO/DI is producing, what is it rated for per day?

 

[Anonymous]

It is rated at 50 Gallon's per day. I did not expect it to produce this much as that is with pefect water pressure and a good quality of water. But as i said before it is only producing in the region of 15 Gallon's a day. It is going to take 6 days to fill my tank. That is why i want to start as soon as possible so it will not take as long.

 

[davesafc]

you can buy booster pumps mate to increase your water pressure. you can buy them from osmotics.co.uk or at least you used to be able to. apparently your tds will be unstable until you get enough pressure pushing through and your filter will exhaust quicker.

gl

 

[kevindub]

It takes me a week to fill up my storage tank. I have never had problems with RO water going bad in this time frame.

 

[Anonymous]

I have started to fill my tank with the water, the guy at the LFS said that it should be fine it is just because the water pressure in this area is low. He said most people get a max 30 Gallon around here with my unit. Have looked at those pumps and they cost £100 pounds. I cannot afford that at this moment in time.

 

[danimal]

Everything takes time .... and money in this hobby. This goes back a while, but I thought in order to maximize the effieciency of your RO system you really need to increase the presure on the order of 75 PSI. If thats true the pump is pretty important. At the time I thought It was important enough to get one and I now use it all the time. This may have been tied to the fact that I work off a well water system where the pressure drops to 30 before being pushed back up.

Could someone set the record straight on the importance of high pressure?

 

[ChrisRD]

Yeah, pressure and water temperatures will have a big effect on how much output you see from the RO unit. Generally, in most homes the incoming water temps are cooler and pressures are lower than the optimum levels for max membrane performance, thus it's not uncommon to see lower production volumes than what the membrane is rated for.

Most of the membranes we encounter in the hobby are rated for max output in the 65-80 PSI range. Most work well at 40+, but 25 PSI is definitely on the low side thus your low production rates. At that pressure you will see substantially lower rejection rates and production volumes.