RO units for 1/2 the price

[RichardPryor]

What's wrong with these RO/DI filters they sell at ebay for half the price of those who some of you buy? Is it in part to support those who have contributed to the community? I understand why you would want to buy the best skimmer you could afford, same thing with lightning. But RO + DI (5 stage) water from different filters can't be that different...

Don't mean to sound like an arrogant. Thanks.

[purebullet417]

my uncle has the water general brand that he got off ebay and loves it. he makes at least 200 gallons of water a month and it always read 0. it took about a year for the filters to get any reading. he actually likes it better then my filter guys unit. best of all it has a drinking water override

[jubjub]

well....i guess the same thing could be said about getting the best skimmer, the water you use makes up like 95% of the total area of your tank....maybe azdesertrat will chime in here...he knows his stuff.....i would recommend getting something from the filterguys....

[RichardPryor]

$110 shipped and with a drinking water override so you can drinK water before it goes through the DI.

Hard not to pull the trigger.

[AZDesertRat]

Water is the single largest ingredient in your reef system and everything in it depends on that water and its quality. Don't try to skimp on cheap RO or RO/DI units, it will bite you every time.
Cheap units use cheap filters and components.

This unit has a 25 micron prefilter, a good one has a 0.5. 1.0 or no larger than a 5.0 micron prefilter. The smaller the better and the smaller the more expensive. This is waht protects the expensive membrane.

This unit uses a 10 micron carbon block. Good units use a 0.5 or 0.6 Matrix carbon block. Big difference. A 0.5 micron Matrix will treat up to 20,000 gallons of normally chlorinated water. The 10 micron will treat about 1,000 gallons. Remember thats all water that passes through the unit including waste and good so thats 200 gallons of good and 800 gallons of waste.

I don't know why they include a second prefilter? Its not needed.

This unit uses a cheap throwaway inline DI filter. Good units use a standard sized 10" vertical canister just like the other filters are housed in. The inline has about 6-8 oz of resin and can short circuit or channel resulting in poor treatment. Verticals hold 20 oz of resin and when packed properly will not channel or short circuit resulting in superior treatment.

Good units has an inline pressure gauge, I don't see one here.

Good units tell you what kind of flow restrictor they come with. Good units tell you the brand of carbon block and its chlorine capacity, I don't see it here.

Sufice to say, you really do get what you pay for.

[jdoenumber2]

I purchased a similar unit. It looks ok but the filters look kinda crappy. See if you can have them swap out for a 75 GPD dow filmtec. The DI doesnt look like it can be refilled. Crappy membrane and filters = fast DI depletion = higher cost of ownership = not a way to save money. Make sure you have a TDS meter so you can see how fast you need to change your DI.

[A.T.T.R]

junk
and im betting low pressure housings as well ( break sooner)

store i work at sells units at about half the price of other good filters and they are about the same as the good ones ( except now dow filters but i havent knoticed a difference after ohh.. about 100 gpd over the past year ( still getting 6 tds with input of almost 400 with 0 tds after di)

anyways point is look around...
look at some of the sponsors. they are more then the ebay units but hardly and they are the same as what i use ( or close enough.. few mods on some sites)

now personaly at home i use spectrapure maxcap. was worth the money and love the support i get!

[ordy1]

I purchased a similar unit, from ebay, about a year ago.

My TDS reading, before DI, was six. After DI it was zero.

I got so much flack about this unit that I went ahead and changed out the membrane for a Dow 75gpd, a 1 micron sediment, .5 micron carbon, 10" DI Canister, and 10" Chloramine buster canister. After my $69.00 initial investment (plus $30.00 shipping) and my $89.00 investment in replacement filters, after six months of using the ebay filters and replacing it with the new guts, my new TDS readings were before DI: four, afer DI zero. I also use this filter for drinking water.

Assuming that I replace the sediment and carbon, and then refill the Chloramine and DI, every six months the Ebay filter really was not that bad of an investment. I keep hearing that the cannisters are crap but I have used these units for a little over a year and have had no leaks or cracks in the plastic or fittings. They look exactly like most of the stuff being sold by vendors on the net.

I agree that the little DI unit that comes with these RODI ebay units is crap. I've also read that the optimum sediment filter should be 1.5 micron with the carbon block being 1 micron. The logic being that .5 micron will clog up faster and by allowing any thing smaller than 1.5 micron through and then filtering down to 1 micron you filter the water more efficiently than if you have a .5 micron sediment and then a .5 micron carbon block. But what do I know? I'm just your newbee hobbyist who repairs HVAC equipment and handles all the chemicals for all the cooling towers in a commercial office building in Manhattan....... When it comes to this stuff I'd listen to AZdesertdan. The man knows this stuff.........

Ordy

[Logzor]

www.buckeyefieldsupply.com