What Kind Of Water Do You Use??

BrandonT

Well-Known Member
i am looking for the cheapest water with the lowest ppm i can get, or wondering if i should buy a filter for my tap water
 

jalis

Well-Known Member
shoot if its only 15 gal you can usually pick up water from a water store for like $1.25 for 5 gallons so for 15 its $3.75
 

BrandonT

Well-Known Member
what store do you think would have water like that would wal mart or super store or canadian tire?
 

mconn333

Well-Known Member
you must have one of those reverse osmosis machines in a store parkinglot around you. its only .25 cents a gal. or find a metal drum clean the inside with bleach, fill it with tap water and boil it over a back yard fire.
 

gobbly

Well-Known Member
most pet stores that sell marine or soft water fish will sell RO/DI water for $0.20 a gallon. You just get a few 5 gallon drinking water jugs and fill them up once a week. You can also get an RO/DI unit and filter your own water. The units start at around $100 and go up from there (my 150gpd unit was ~$110). Other options are bottled water (you really don't know what is in it though, it's certainly not pure), or distilled which is pure or nearly so. Both tend to be more pricey than buying RO/DI from pet stores.
 
If you have access to a yard outside, buy a tarp and get a bucket. Dig a hole and prop up the tarp so that it looks like this \/ and the bucket sits at the bottom of the V in the hole. when the sun heats the air below the tarp it will allow more water to be trapped in the parcels of air below the tarp and then the water will eventually stick to the tarp since the topside air will be cooling the tarp eventually water will start to run down your tarp into your bucket. Contaminants should be low, environment will play a part in that. Otherwise call the cullagen man.

Also a reverse osmosis filter going to use up a lot of water. If you're water is free though hell yeah I'd go that route. If you pay for your water, it would probably be cheaper to buy a dehumidifier and just put that sucker outside and connect a hose to a resevoir. thats going to cost like 30$ a month and produce a galon or so a day if you buy a 2000sqft one granted not all dehumidifier are equal and some may not last very long outside. I just thought about it and relise the dehumidifier is only going to work in certain regions effectivly, if you're in the desert forget about it.
 

gobbly

Well-Known Member
yes, RO filters work on pressure passing pure water through a membrane. What isn't pure is disposed of, and tends to be 25-50% more contaminated than the water going in. Most use 1.5-2 gallons of water to get 1 gallon of pure. When I got my RO/DI unit I ran the figures. Including waste water I end up paying around $0.02-$0.03 per gallon, roughly 1/10th the price from the local fish store ($0.20). Of course it depends on the cost of your local water, but I suspect you'd find that even accounting for filter changes yearly (and at his usage more like every 3-5 years), it is less than half the cost of paying someone else to filter it. I figured out that mine will pay for itself (including the first membrane change) in roughly 6 months (of course it depends on how much water you use, and I am using more than 15g per week).
 
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