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Reverse Osmosis System

Lemonhands

Member
Thread starter
Joined
19 Apr 2022
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56
Location
Bristol, UK
Hi all,

I am looking into purchasing and RO System so i can cut my water (I live in Bristol and so have very hard water). The fish i stock are hardwater fish but even by their standards my water is right up there, so i just want to essentially soft water down my very hard water enough to bring it in line and hopefully improve qol of my fishy friends. I would usually just go to my lfs but theyll probably only stock one model and so will push that, so thought id ask here before heading down there this week.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Is there anything else i should consider/know before buying an RO system?
 
the two i have used are Osmotics and Vyair, both offer outstanding customer service and help in choosing the right set up, and both make excellent quality ro systems.
You cant go wrong with either company. chat to them and they will tell you exactly what you need.
 
the two i have used are Osmotics and Vyair, both offer outstanding customer service and help in choosing the right set up, and both make excellent quality ro systems.
You cant go wrong with either company. chat to them and they will tell you exactly what you need.
Thanks @john6 will check them both out now and drop them a message
 
the two i have used are Osmotics and Vyair, both offer outstanding customer service and help in choosing the right set up, and both make excellent quality ro systems.
You cant go wrong with either company. chat to them and they will tell you exactly what you need.
I'll second both of those, and also throw Finest-Filters into the mix, (also known as finest aquatics). I built my own system from parts from all three of those (and also RO-Man), but I have researched RO units for years in my brewing roles, where they are actually not required for the vast majority of water conditions. If you have a variable water supply (like I do) and you need a stable supply, like we do as planted aquarists, then an RO unit can be really helpful.

1) get a pumped system, this ensures your production rate is pretty constant, and it's cheaper to do so at the beginning rather than add it on later.
2) capacity is measured in US gallons per day, which is only 3.875L rather than the UK's 4.5L, bear that in mind when determining your requirements ... also note that the capacity is measured at 20C, it falls off when water is cooler than this.
3) if you want pure water then you will need a 6 stage unit. This adds a DI stage after the membrane (and a carbon "taste" filter). I go from 130-150ppm TDS to 2ppm after the membrane, and the DI unit takes that to 0 ppm. If you are only "cutting" your supply water with a proportion of RO then a DI stage is not essential, but remember that ion selectivity is variable across the membrane. Silicates for example are only 65% rejected, whereas Calcium is 95-98% rejected.
4) expect to waste water. Domestic RO units run at anything from 1:2 to 1:4 permeate to brine, mine a dual (100GPD) membrane pumped setup is currently running at 1:1, and produces 0.8L of pure water a minute.

The good thing is that these units are modular, so adding an additional membrane to reduce waste water, or a DI unit can be done quite cheaply at a later date. This is mine attached to a 300L IBC container as storage. I'm currently building a surround for it.
20220425.ROUnit.jpg

I've just added that 7L Vyair DI resin chamber, and knocked the pre-filters off it's support.
 
Hi @Lemonhands, First, how big is your tank, WC frequency and WC percentage? .. and what's your current GH and what GH level do you want?

Cheers,
Michael
I have multiple tanks, but I am waiting on a 345l to be delivered which is what I am looking to get the system for (I will use it on the other tanks too). My typical water changes are roughly 30% every week to ten days. I'll confirm my current GH/KH shortly
 
I'll second both of those, and also throw Finest-Filters into the mix, (also known as finest aquatics). I built my own system from parts from all three of those (and also RO-Man), but I have researched RO units for years in my brewing roles, where they are actually not required for the vast majority of water conditions. If you have a variable water supply (like I do) and you need a stable supply, like we do as planted aquarists, then an RO unit can be really helpful.

1) get a pumped system, this ensures your production rate is pretty constant, and it's cheaper to do so at the beginning rather than add it on later.
2) capacity is measured in US gallons per day, which is only 3.875L rather than the UK's 4.5L, bear that in mind when determining your requirements ... also note that the capacity is measured at 20C, it falls off when water is cooler than this.
3) if you want pure water then you will need a 6 stage unit. This adds a DI stage after the membrane (and a carbon "taste" filter). I go from 130-150ppm TDS to 2ppm after the membrane, and the DI unit takes that to 0 ppm. If you are only "cutting" your supply water with a proportion of RO then a DI stage is not essential, but remember that ion selectivity is variable across the membrane. Silicates for example are only 65% rejected, whereas Calcium is 95-98% rejected.
4) expect to waste water. Domestic RO units run at anything from 1:2 to 1:4 permeate to brine, mine a dual (100GPD) membrane pumped setup is currently running at 1:1, and produces 0.8L of pure water a minute.

The good thing is that these units are modular, so adding an additional membrane to reduce waste water, or a DI unit can be done quite cheaply at a later date. This is mine attached to a 300L IBC container as storage. I'm currently building a surround for it.
View attachment 187437
I've just added that 7L Vyair DI resin chamber, and knocked the pre-filters off it's support.
Thanks, that's very concise, will certainly look into the options of reducing the waste water somewhat as would prefer to be more environmental where possible, so less water wasted the better. I'm sure i can dump some of it back into the garden but I imagine there is a limit to that in the long run before the concentration of minerals has an effect there too.
As you say, i'm only really looking to cut the water to make it somewhat softer than it is without having to add a load of chemicals (which is usually only a trade anyway), so hopefully a 4 stage will be fine for my purposes. I'll certainly double check the pumped system though.
 
+1 for Vyair - great service from them, and my pumped unit has been excellent. Just don't automatically follow their cartridge replacement suggestions.

My unit took 18 months before the carbon filters became exhausted and I started registering chlorine on my Hanna tester, and my RO membranes are still fine as I'm getting the same 6ppm product water I did on day one. If I had followed the 'recommendations' I'd have already been through 6 additional carbon/sediment filters and two additional RO membranes unnecessarily.
 
I have multiple tanks, but I am waiting on a 345l to be delivered which is what I am looking to get the system for (I will use it on the other tanks too). My typical water changes are roughly 30% every week to ten days. I'll confirm my current GH/KH shortly

@Lemonhands OK, I see. Well, if your doing 30% of 345L/wk thats ~100L/wk. If you only seek to cut say 5 GH off from say 15 GH you need about 33L of RO water weekly the rest being your tap. The problem people usually runs into is storage of the RO water so you have to factor that in. I got the 100GPD RO Buddie with the optional DI cartridge (the water comes in at 270 ppm and out at 2 ppm). I am using 100% remineralized RO+DI water in both my 150 L tanks with weekly ~40% WC. Making about 120 L/wk - its manageable, but I wouldn't want to deal with more than that.

The efficiency is a function of temperature and water pressure:

ROPSIT.jpg



Cheers,
Michael
 
I'm currently deciding between:
4 Stage 75 Gallon Per Day Reverse Osmosis RODI System (and purchasing the additional pump)
and

I'm not sure how relevant having the in-built pressure gauge is in the Osmotics one if you're using a pump? I didn't see it mentioned on the vyair one, but a video I watched earlier says you can use it as a way to identify when one of the filter materials needs changing? Not sure if anyone could clarify?

Thanks
 
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Without high jacking this post how long can you store RO water. I am imagining indefinatey.

Dirk
Whats the expiration date on the "distilled" water you buy at the grocery store?.... Well, if it's sealed and not exposed to sunlight I would say indefinitely as well.. but you probably do not want to keep it until the sun turns into a red giant, as not everything is removed by an RO unit - such as most organic compounds, bacterial microorganisms, or dissolved gases like CO2, methane, radon etc.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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I used finer filters and they were excellent.
If your pressure is on the low side, pumped system will reduce the waste. My 50gpd fills 50l tub in around 3hrs. You can get a drinking system and use it for both drinking water and aquarium water. 6 stage drinking systems may have remineralizer/odour&taste treatment which you don't want for aquarium, you want to branch out with a check valve and a Tee before them. RO DI stage is to remove the 1% that membrane didn't catch, not worth the hassle in my opinion, others will disagree. Very hard water will wear your membrane quicker, I would suggest getting the inline tds probe with the system, so you stay on top of that.

I use cheap plastic boxes with float valves which I fill overnight. Boxes are kept on DIY trolleys - just a piece of board with castor wheels. I then roll them out of sight and plop an airstone until next WC, so to answer the question above, water can last in a box for at least a week :)
 
I used to store 1000 litres of rodi water in an IBC in my mixing station for months at a time, ready to make saltwater, still as good as it was when i filled it up. The key is to keep it sealed, not airtight sealed but as @Wookii says, keep a tight lid on it and out of sunlight, good to go.
 
Not sure why I haven't been getting notifications for the post, but, thanks to everyone who contributed as i think I have made a pretty good decision, I ended up orderign the RO system today. I went with Osmotics in the end, mostly because i found the website the most user friendly and so finding what i needed was really easy. I did get a pump, plus the membrane upgrade kit (to cut down on waste water), I also got an inline TDS meter for it too.
Fingers crossed the set up all goes smoothly when it all arrives.

Thanks again everyone, been very helpful
 
Also, I have this big plastic water canister thing which I take camping with me, so i'm gonna see if I can get away with storing some RO water in there, but it's not so big that it would store enough to cut my 345 outright, but some of my smaller tanks/the shrimp and neo rasbora tank I will also be setting up sometime it will probably do
 
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