Ro Unit Questions

[Betta5]

I am upgrading soon and I am just going to get an RO unit rather than using tap water again. Something about using tap water for them just feels grimy and dirty. I just have a few basic questions.

How man GPD will I need it to be? The new tank will be 55 gallons.

Are they easy to fit yourself?

How the hell do they even work?
A link would be fine if you dont want to explain. Im not even sure I understand. I know water goes in one part and comes out the other side as RO water, and I know there is waste water. But then there are all different tubes and deelies and things and its really confusing

Where do I fit it? A sp pipe?

Sorry about dumb questions, I just have no idea

 

[drsquirrel]

If your tank is 50 gallons and you get a 50GPD unit, it will take a day to fill - granted you should only need to do this once.

Consider how often you will do a water change, and how much. If you do 20% a week, that's 10 gallons - 50GPD unit would take around 5 hours to generate that much (this assumes optimal throughput, based on your household water pressure and temperature).

You fit the RO Unit input pipe onto one of your main household pipe lines (loads of ways to do this, general search and you will see pictures that explain better), and the RO unit has 2 out - 1 waste, 1 RO. Remembering that an RO unit will waste around 4 units for every 1 unit generated.

If you are on a water meter you might want to start (crying, and) considering what to do with the waste (watering the garden, etc).

 

[Betta5]

Thanks for the reply and help. We arnt on a water meter so thats fine, well not for the planet but screw it lol

So the water goes directly from the pipe into the unit and then you get the RO water from one tube and the waste water from another. Do you put each tube into a container and keep throwing out the waste water?

That seems way eaiser than I thought lol

 

[drsquirrel]

Depends how you want to plumb it really. You can get drain pipe saddles.


You have to consider water cut off - if you full a tub you will either have to watch to make it stop over flowing, and don't cut off the RO output, cut off the RO input (otherwise it will just keep dumping water).


"Dumping" waste water isn't as unfriendly as you might think it is - if you used the grey water say, to flush in the toilet... all you get is half the amount of water with the same amount of waste... so filters still catch the same amount at water processing plants etc... lower volume + higher concentration vs higher volume + lower concentration... make of it what you will.

Could put the waste tube directly into a trickle feed system for your gardens (no need for a butt either, unless you want to water on demand). Have a general browse there are loads of ways to go about it without just dumping it.