RO unit?? Need educating

[Iain Sutherland]

Hi there folks, im hoping someone with a little experience with RO units, as i have none, could offer up some advise.

I currently have a nano marine tank,softish water high tech (300lt) and a shrimp nano.
My needs are:
approx 30lt a week in the marine
50lts a week in the high tech , top up.
20ltrs a week in the shrimp tank.

I am soon to change my RCS nano to a CRS nano using just RO, so now that my needs for RO are growing and the price of RO going up, 25lt for £2.50 at Cambridge Coral Tech but if they are closed MA want £4.00!! i feel that an RO unit would be a wise investment.

Also the fact that i am not on a water meter makes it all the more economical

So i have a bit of a restriction in that i dont have anywhere that i can plumb a unit in permanently so will need a unit i can plug in over night then pack away the next day. Is there such a thing?

Any advise about the associated costs of RO units, recommendations of makes/brands etc would be greatly recieved.

Thanks a lot.

 

[clonitza]

You can hook any RO unit to the sink/bath faucet with an adapter, just check the RO unit connector size and see if you can fit it, I think it's 3/4 but I might be mistaken.

Mike

 

[Christie_ZXR]

I got my unit off ebay, bout 60 quid or so. It's only a dinky one, but it does about 5-10L an hour depending how warm the weather is. With a big enough tub, I can leave it running overnight. My o/h did the fiddling to get it to hook up to the kitchen tap, but I think it was a hosepipe connector he used in the end. Works a treat, the unit lives in the cupboard under the sink, and I just have to open the cupboard and plug it onto the tap each time I want to use it.
One tip I can give if you go that route is to make sure the waste pipe is firmly poked down the plughole or something similar! First time I used it I may have flooded the kitchen with the waste water because the pipe got knocked out of the sink...

 

[ian_m]

When my mate used RO water for his fish years ago, he kept his RO unit under the plinths of his kitchen cupboards, there is a good 100mm odd under most kitchen units.

Originally plumbed in to the water pipes above, waste going out to washing machine drain and a long pipe in the unit under the sink to fill buckets. He later modified by running the output pipe into his garage so that he could fill even larger containers with a heater in over night.

Oh he wasn't on a water meter....

 

[hotweldfire]

Got mine (also off ebay) connected to the garden hose tap. Unfortunately, I found out from my last water bill that I am on a meter

Apparently there's a hosepipe ban in the SE coming soon?

 

[Iain Sutherland]

thanks for the input guys, i have found a unit that will suit my needs from theroman recommended from a reef forum.
If i use 50/50 ro tap will i still need to re-mineralize it?

there certainly is mate, its been really dry round this way.

New substrate arrived for the shrimp nano and took a walk to find suitable wood