RO Question

[paige]

I've just moved to a new city and the water is completely different (in a bad way) here. I was looking into getting an RO unit. My questions are

1. How much water do these things waste? I was only looking at a 35 or 50 gpd unit. I assume that is enough for a 46g tank. I'm not so much an environmentalist, but this new city charges an absolute fortune for water...almost three times as much as at our old house.

2. What is a good unit to buy?

3. How long can I store the water in a bucket? Do I just need to use a powerhead or airstones to keep it "fresh"? Sorry...I'm still very new to this. Please help!!

 

[Anonymous]

1. Well, the amount of waste water depends on the unit, and on how bad the water is that it is filtering. The more crap in the water, the more waste water you'll generate. But, the cost of water shouldn't be that much if you set it up to only run what you need, i.e. like a float valve setup. Besides, you use a lot more water than you think in a day just living normally-a 10 minute shower uses approx. 20 gallons

2. I've owned Captive Purity, Kent Marine and Spectrapure units and they have all worked about the same.

3. Covered water (both fresh and mixed with salt) can be stored pretty much indefinitely as long as you aeriate it. I've used both airstones and powerheads so it's a matter of how big a container you are keeping.

 

[bleedingthought]

Lawdawg, can you also recommend cheaper RO/DI units??? I really need/want one but wanted to catch a deal (which I thought I had, but can't seem to close a personal buy). Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry...I can't recommend what I haven't bought myself. Hopefully someone else will chime in here.

 

[bleedingthought]

I didn't mean cheaper than the ones you mentioned, but more so the cheapest one of them... Or best value, I should say.

 

[Anonymous]

Check out this thread...never thought of Costco or EBay.

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=90254

 

[bleedingthought]

Thank you! I'm waiting for a guy to get back to me about purchasing his but if for whatever reason that doesn't go through, I might have to check out Costco then!