RO System - What to buy?

Well, I'm finally in the market to get an RO system and after hours of reading here, I'm still completely undecided as to what I should get.

I rent my current house, so I'm looking for something that will be able to be moved around if needed. Bladder tank isn't necessary as I'm fine with just filling my tanks the day before. If it could be hooked up to a garden hose, that would probably be ideal. Waste water I'm open on, I could use it to water my plants, or go down the washer drain which is nearby where I will likely be using this thing.

My water company does use chloramine which I will still be using Campden to eliminate as I don't really intend to ever do a full RO water buildup, but a dilution rather. So I don't really need an extra chloramine filter and my tap water that I do keep for my brews (which is extremely hard) will be going through a charcoal filter as well.

Is DI something you want for brewing?
How many stages is good? And what should those stages be?
Would you recommend something different than what I'm thinking about using this for?
Am I seriously over thinking this? lol

I've read a few good things about bulkreefsupply.com and their prices seem to be inline with my price range, but I'm not sure exactly what I should get from there. Ideally I'd love to be able to get a system and not receive it and think "Ah crap, I didn't order the fitting for XXXX!"

Help!

Why not just buy distilled water from the grocery store?

For the same reason my burners use NG. To avoid the refill trips.

I just bought one about a month ago, and have done two batches with my own RO water (and some tap water, mixed). Here's the one I bought: http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store...di-systems/75-gp-5-stage-ro-system-no-di.html

I felt that I didn't need DI, that RO was perfect for my needs.

Seems strange that your link says 5 stage, but the product page it links to is a 4 stage. Is that correct?

I was leaning towards no DI also, so I'm glad to hear that you went that way as well.
Did you need to buy anything in addition to that system to hook it up?

I bought a 4 stage RODI from Purewaterclub.com on Ebay. I produces 150 gallons a day or about 6.5 gallons an hour. The entire set up was amazingly cheap. I added a booster pump since I have low pressure due to a well and the entire system was still around a hundred bucks. You can add as many additional filters as you would like by simply adding them to the chain. If you require additional filtration for certain specific things like Iron, Chlorine and other contaminants. I added two large sediment filters before my system and that seems to really polish the water when it comes out of the de-ionizer headed to the storage tank. Have a look at Purewaterclub.com and Filteroncall,com for about the best prices and delivery times around. 4 days from Cali to Florida, not bad at all.
Bob

krazydave said:

Seems strange that your link says 5 stage, but the product page it links to is a 4 stage. Is that correct?

I was leaning towards no DI also, so I'm glad to hear that you went that way as well.
Did you need to buy anything in addition to that system to hook it up?

Click to expand...

Yes, it's a four stage!

Thanks!!
purewaterclub.com definitely has some hard to beat prices!
But I have to wonder about the quality of those units... Some things just seem a little fishy there also, like they're claiming the 150GPD RO system, at 65 psi creates 6.25 gallons of pure water and 6.8 gallons of waste water within one hour.

That can't possibly be correct!

I did find someone local on Craigslist that has one of these for sale http://www.growonix.com/gx-series/GX150 that they used for about a year for hydroponics. Plenty of hydroponics to be found in CA! lol
Any thoughts on something like that? It seems like it's only a 3 stage unit from the pictures, and the description isn't very clear on what exactly it is either.

Crazy,
Unfortunately the reject water on RO is very high. The principal is to create a negative ionic pressure on the pure water side of the membrane and cause the incoming water on the inlet side of the membrane to migrate through . At low inlet pressures the reject rate is something like 85%, but as inlet pressure increases from 40PSI to around 65Psi the ratio gets better. Both of those sites I mentioned appear to be run by Asians due to their common grammmer mistakes. They have some difficulty trying to get certain complex English subjects to translate for them. But the membrane is the membrane and thats where the quality or lack of it is. If you have a good high quality membrane and a couple of filters and can create that pressure differential you can build your own literally from scratch. The reason I know what little bit I know is in addition to being a "mad scientist/tinkerer", I also have to endure three days a week of Hemodialysis which is essentially reverse Osmosis on my blood. Hope this helps clear it up a bit for you.
Wheelchair Bob

Coming form a reef aquarium background I can tell you the best most efficient membrane is the Dow Corning 75 GPD.

I have the 4 stage unit form Bulk Reef Supply also. My unit has DI resin in it, should I take it out?