Good R/O units?

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ShadowBass

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 13, 2007
2,322
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Poplar Bluff, MO
Does anyone know where to find good reasonably priced R/O units? Doubt there's anyone near me with any information on stores, but maybe someone knows a website that sells them and has good shipping rates.
What are some good brands? Is there anything I should look for to indicate quality?

I've never bought an R/O unit so I don't really know much about them and I'm worried if I just go buy some random one it won't work very good.
 
The one we have from home depot does just fine. reasonably priced at 160 and does just under 5gallons. every morning i wake up and empty the tank into a 50gallon trash can.
 
What are you looking to accomplish with the ro unit? 50GPD can be purchased for ~$60-80, 100GPD ~$100, and 150GPD ~$135. Also, do you want a DI unit attached? What is the PSI output at your house?
 
WyldFya;1138062; said:
What are you looking to accomplish with the ro unit? 50GPD can be purchased for ~$60-80, 100GPD ~$100, and 150GPD ~$135. Also, do you want a DI unit attached? What is the PSI output at your house?
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Dunno the PSI.

Mainly I just want it so I can top off water in my tanks. It's getting really annoying to buy distilled constantly for that, plus I end up running out when I need it. I also want it for water changes on my 90g and 20g SW tanks.

I would prefer it have a DI unit attached.

I'm not really sure exactly how big I need yet. Don't the TDS in the tapwater effect the actual output also? Is there any way for me to figure out how much output I'm actually going to get with my water?

The one we have from home depot does just fine. reasonably priced at 160 and does just under 5gallons. every morning i wake up and empty the tank into a 50gallon trash can.
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I looked at that one, but I'm not sure it would produce enough water for my tanks. Not sure if there's a quality difference between that one and others either because I want something that will work well for a long time.
 
Most RO units will work for many years. To know what the output TDS is, all you need is a TDS meter. :D Personally I use a Dvoneb aqua 150GPD 6 stage RO/DI unit, with a 3 stage Kent Deion 200R behind it, and I have a 1 stage under sink filter (same part as most RO units). Essentially I have a 10 stage RO/DI unit. I use a backflush system to keep the TDS down, and the membranes working longer.
 
i bought my 6 stage (3 filter, membrane, 2 DI) on ebay from the Filter Direct guys. it's called a Watergeneral. very good RO/DI for the price. it will work just fine out of the box, but don't buy replacement filters from them, you can get better filters for cheaper at other online stores. the other upgrade (of course) is the membrane. the membrane that's in it works fine, it just depends on the water you're putting through it. it's till a good deal, you can either spend a ton of $ on a name brand RO unit (and most likely it won't be any better than the Watergeneral), or you can go with the Watergeneral itself and fix it up at you're leisure.
i also have the one from Home Depot, the GE Smartwater RO unit. it does 7g a day, and i tried to use it for my SW tank, emptying in 5g of water at a time. it was a complete PITA, not worth it. my Watergeneral does 110gpd, and it's a lot less of a hassle. i have it emptying into a Brute trashcan with a floatswitch, very simple set-up.
here's a link to their store on Ebay, if you're interested:
http://stores.ebay.com/Filter-Direct-store
 
No, I mean will the TDS in my tapwater effect the total output of actual water from the unit. The pamphlet for the R/O my LFS bought said something about that. They were getting really low output from their unit and they weren't sure if it was because the TDS in our tapwater is really high or because the unit wasn't functioning correctly. Our tapwater does have really high TDS, so if the output is significantly lessened by that I may have to go for a much larger unit.
 
cyclops23;1140386; said:
BTW, invest in a TDS meter, they're cheap and totally worth it. you'll be glad you did. :)
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Yeah I really do need to do that also, it would make things a lot easier.

Thanks for the info, I was skeptical about the one I saw at Home Depot, though I can't remember whether it was the brand you mentioned or not, and it seemed expensive compared to the ones I saw online with more output.
 
ShadowBass;1140418;1140418 said:
No, I mean will the TDS in my tapwater effect the total output of actual water from the unit. The pamphlet for the R/O my LFS bought said something about that. They were getting really low output from their unit and they weren't sure if it was because the TDS in our tapwater is really high or because the unit wasn't functioning correctly. Our tapwater does have really high TDS, so if the output is significantly lessened by that I may have to go for a much larger unit.
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Generally homes have 150-400TDS out of the tap. The amount of TDS doesn't affect the flow too much, but it will affect how long between changing filters. If they weren't getting the amount rated, or even close, then they are very weak on water pressure. RO pumps can be purchased that will fix this problem.

The water generals are great RO units, I've used them, and like them quite a bit.
 
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