High
@WaterExpertNick420 and welcome to RIU! Could you take a look at my planned RO setup and let me know what you think before I hook it all up soon.
We get our tap water from a dugout on my property and it’s 400ppm+ and pH8+ depending on the time of year. Spring melt that fills it lowers both the pH and PPM.
As I need specialized filtration and sterilization I just bought all the parts from a company called The Water Guy. About $550 for all the parts. The filter housings were half the price and clear too so easy to see the filters.
We already filter down to 5µ so my RO unit will have a 1µ filter → standard carbon filter → 0.5µ carbon filter → RO filter → branch off for grow water → UV sterilizer → branch off for coffee maker water → then a Carbon/Calcite filter to ‘polish’ the water to make it tasty and add some minerals to the water for drinking. In 6 months or less it will pay for itself and the input water is free. It’s kind of stinky even when it’s clear and clean looking so that’s why there is 3 carbon filters altogether.
The filter housings take any standard 2x10" filter used in most housings.
Here’s the basic layout and I just have to get it together and hook it all up downstairs.
View attachment 5150277
Does all that seem like it's going to work OK?
Another thing I've wondered about is that one-way valve that goes in after the RO filter but not in my setup. From what I can tell it's used when a float valve is involved downstream and shuts off when the float valve has stopped water flow. I'm not planning to use a float valve so is it needed? I have it but didn't see the need and it's going to just add more possible leak points. Hard to figure out too as it has no markings on it to show flow for hooking up the tubing for the four connections on it.
Not eating enough is what's causing my weight to drop and I never said it was because of the water. I too have muscle cramping and numbness in parts of my body along with chronic diarrhea that I've learned to control with probiotics after years of the runaround from doc. My last colonoscopy shows I have diverticular pockets in my bowel that explains my sensitivities to certain foods like beef so we haven't eaten any of that for a couple years now.
I saw the new doc/nurse practitioner in town yesterday to get my medpot renewed and after reviewing my history and dicussing the more recent cramping and numbness tested my reflexes and found I have hyper reflex in my rt. leg where more recent numbing is occurring. She is pretty convinced I may have MS and recommended I apply my CBD in DMSO to my upper and lower spine for a while and let her know how it works when I see her next. A regular doctor would have sent me out of there with a handful of scrips for nasty pharma meds so I really like the cut of her jib. Her gams are great too and overall she's a real hottie. Discussed my prostate issues too but didn't offer to do a digital rectal exam so that was disappointing.
Most of the RO I drink is run thru a pile of coffee and I haven't had a can of any soda for well over 10 years and rarely had one before that. No junk food and the wife grows lots of fresh veggies every year. She planted 2440 garlic last fall and 2410 are coming up real nice. Her cash crop and it's legal!
All we've used for water is RO for 20 years so I'd suggest your problems are not related to RO consumption.
Sorry to be hijacking your thread
@VictorFlorez.
Hello OldMedUser,
No worries, happy to help, any time I can help make something easier or save you some money I am happy to.
Are you running this to a tank or are you looking for it to be "on demand"?
The reason I ask this, RO systems are rated in GPD or gallons per day. These smaller RO's are usually 50 to 100 gpd. So as an example, if you do not run to fill up a tank to have water on hand, you run it on demand meaning it produces what comes from the tap. So I am going to give you an example of what it would be like without a tank and why running to a tank would be the best option for you.
Without a tank:
50 gallons per day divided by how many minutes in a day (1440)
50 divided by 1440 = 0.03 gallons per minute.
Now with a tank- the system fills the tank up over a period of time so you have water ready to use from the tank. The standard tanks are 4.5 gallon, but there are larger options available depending on the water you need. These are bladder tanks so they do not hold a whole 4.5 gallons because of the room the bladder takes up. It will hold about 3 gallons. The 10 gallon will hold about 7.5 actual gallons and it varies on the size of the tank.
For future reference, I work for a company that sells these as a package, we have American made systems as well that are high quality at this price, but are at about half for the standard like this. I have to be careful on posting links as I enjoy getting to be apart of this group and do not want to get banned, but I can absolutely help with any recommendations you guys may need or help since I know both the grower water side and am a hobby grower myself.
High
@WaterExpertNick420 and welcome to RIU! Could you take a look at my planned RO setup and let me know what you think before I hook it all up soon.
We get our tap water from a dugout on my property and it’s 400ppm+ and pH8+ depending on the time of year. Spring melt that fills it lowers both the pH and PPM.
As I need specialized filtration and sterilization I just bought all the parts from a company called The Water Guy. About $550 for all the parts. The filter housings were half the price and clear too so easy to see the filters.
We already filter down to 5µ so my RO unit will have a 1µ filter → standard carbon filter → 0.5µ carbon filter → RO filter → branch off for grow water → UV sterilizer → branch off for coffee maker water → then a Carbon/Calcite filter to ‘polish’ the water to make it tasty and add some minerals to the water for drinking. In 6 months or less it will pay for itself and the input water is free. It’s kind of stinky even when it’s clear and clean looking so that’s why there is 3 carbon filters altogether.
The filter housings take any standard 2x10" filter used in most housings.
Here’s the basic layout and I just have to get it together and hook it all up downstairs.
View attachment 5150277
Does all that seem like it's going to work OK?
Another thing I've wondered about is that one-way valve that goes in after the RO filter but not in my setup. From what I can tell it's used when a float valve is involved downstream and shuts off when the float valve has stopped water flow. I'm not planning to use a float valve so is it needed? I have it but didn't see the need and it's going to just add more possible leak points. Hard to figure out too as it has no markings on it to show flow for hooking up the tubing for the four connections on it.
Hello OldMedUser,
No worries, happy to help, any time I can help make something easier or save you some money I am happy to. Same for anybody reading this thread looking for help. Feel free to reach out!
Are you running this to a tank or are you looking for it to be "on demand"?
The reason I ask this, RO systems are rated in GPD or gallons per day. These smaller RO's are usually 50 to 100 gpd. So as an example, if you do not run to fill up a tank to have water on hand, you run it on demand meaning it produces what comes from the system to the tap. So I am going to give you an example of what it would be like without a tank and why running to a tank would be the best option for you.
Without a tank:
50 gallons per day divided by how many minutes in a day (1440) = 0.03 gallons per minute is what you would get from the system straight to the faucet without a tank.
Now with a tank- the system fills the tank up over a period of time so you have water ready to use from the tank. The standard tanks are 4.5 gallon, but there are larger options available depending on the water you need. These are bladder tanks so they do not hold a whole 4.5 gallons because of the room the bladder takes up. It will hold about 3 gallons.
Other than that, aside from a filter bracket that you can basically mount all of this to, you are looking good as far as the order and what you have. Just a couple things I wanted to also give some info on:
Clear housings: Clear housings are awesome to be able to see in and look at if the filter is getting bad to the point of changing it. Where they have a negative impact is, photosynthesis. Any sort of light in the area they are installed, especially sunlight, you end up with algae growth inside the housing.
For future reference, I work for a company that sells these as a package, tank and all the tubing and connections included. We have American made systems as well that are high quality at this price, but are at about half for the standard like this. I have to be careful on posting links as I enjoy getting to be apart of this group and do not want to get banned, but I can absolutely help with any recommendations you guys may need or help since I know both the grower water side and am a hobby grower myself.