I’m about to give up. I’ve had it!

five.five-six · Jun 25, 2020

I’m about to give up and buy an entire new RO/DI system. Been about 3 weeks not hat I’ve been troubleshooting my old one. It makes about 4 gallons a day now and I have no idea why. I’v checked and cleaned the restrictor, all the tubing , there’s 70-80 PSI going into the membrane, when I switch the valve to flush, there is plenty of wastewater volume but still, it barely makes enough water to keep up with my evaporation and a water change is just right out of the question. The membrane is only a few years old. I hate to spend the money on an entire new system but I NEED WATER!!!

bvysochin · Jun 25, 2020

Time for a new membrane? We went through something similar and feel your pain.. talk about frustrating !! After going through about 4 membranes in a matter of months, we finally realized that one of our solenoids was sticking and not shutting off the production when it was supposed to.. eventually leading up to plugged membranes. Hows your auto shut off valve?

five.five-six · Jun 25, 2020

bvysochin said:

I just replaced my ASV about 6 months ago but I think it was the cheapest one I could find on eBay. I took it apart and cleaned it this morning (it seemed clean but I gave it the once over anyway) hopefully that is the trick. My prefilters are dirty and it’s time to replace them but with the pressure and volume of water that gets past them, I don’t think thats the problem.

I guess I’ll try a new membrane next.. or perhaps just buy a complete spectrapure And call it a day.

Emac909 · Jun 25, 2020

Mark your trolling right. A few years on the membrane

OMG when I was living in yucaipa I went through 2 membranes a year. Now I’m in perris my latest membrane has about 8 months on it and it’s all ready putting out 6 tds.

pledosophy · Jun 25, 2020

Emac909 said:

I lived in Oregon for awhile. The TDS out of my tap was 8. I was doing no water changes on my system. After 5 years my DI resin was still half good. Same RO membrane.

A lot of guys up there just run straight DI.

Funny how it changes regionally.

Emac909 · Jun 25, 2020

pledosophy said:

Must be nice. SoCal is not so fortunate. We all turning into mutants with the toxic water here. My tap is 400 to 300 depending on the time of year. Plus perris uses chloramine sin the water. So I’m running a 6 stage ro/di and when I change my membrane I’m upgrading to a 7 stage maybe even 8 stage with double ro

BeanMachine · Jun 25, 2020

My tank is looking much better after installing a 20” “Chloramine Monster” Carbon Filter before my RODI unit. Several membranes and DI resin changes later and finally got one. Highly recommended.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Emac909 · Jun 26, 2020

BeanMachine said:

I have to see this Cody.

BeanMachine · Jun 26, 2020

Emac909 said:

Similar to this. I saved a few bucks getting the 20" housing off of Amazon.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-reverse-osmosis-chloramines-monster.html

five.five-six · Jun 28, 2020

iammrhappy said:

yea, i'm exactly like this except I have a bypass flush valve and no presurized tank on this system, so there's no post filter either

Position 6 has a valve or restrictor built into it. I cleaned it, I also recently replaced the 7/3 ASOV about 6 months ago.

System has been running a few years but just recently slowed wayyyyy down

I'm kinda suspecting the membrane... but I usaly get 10 years out of a membrane my experience is that membranes usally leak more TDS when they go bad. restrictor is a 300 and the membrane is 25GPD but when I filled my 135 a few years back I clocked it at about 32GPD

I'll buy a new restrictor and membrane on eBay but I really want to do a water change, it's been 2 months

five.five-six · Jun 28, 2020

iammrhappy said:

I think I'm just going to get this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/6-Stage-RO...7959d635ca6f449caed83e1b48482298&ampid=PL_CLK

capulary or external restrictor? I'm thinking external because that's what I know.

five.five-six · Jun 28, 2020

iammrhappy said:

Honestly I wouldnt buy that package.

You dont need the two add ons.

And the 5 micron carbon says it has coconut in it lol.

The sed is also 5 microns.

If i remember correctly, you want the sed to be the smaller micron than the carbon. Id look that up on google.

I have 0.5 micron sed -> 0.5 micron carbon -> 0.5 micron carbon -> 150 gpd RO membrane -> DI

Id buy that RO membrane seperately. After googling that Filmtec part number, its on amazon for 44 usd.

Id go with external push to connect flow restrictor because taking out a capillary is pain.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

i didn’t buy it yet but I can use the addons for my drinking water system. I’ll post photos later today.

five.five-six · Jun 28, 2020

iammrhappy said:

I know, it’s time to replace the prefilters but I still get 50 pounds of pressure with the flush valve open

five.five-six · Jun 29, 2020

That makes sense, with the spores clogging the membrane. The algae is a bit of a mystery to me.. must have been a nutrient spike in my muni water supply because the unit is in my garage and it’s usually dark in there

I ended up getting this kit, I have spare pre-filters. I’ll replace all when the new membrane and restrictor.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Filmtec-10...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

iammrhappy said:

five.five-six · Jun 29, 2020

iammrhappy said:

no but I've accumulated them over the years. don't let the simplicity of my tank fool you, at my heart I am a gearhead. It's just that I've found that simple and elegant solutions often do the best at growing coral.

So I think your algae spore theory holds water. I tore the whole thing down and wiped and flushed everything. I found bright green residue everywhere including inside the membrane chamber.

I sprayed the old membrane with 3% H2O2 and flushed it. It seems to be making water at 35GPD again however the rejection rate is only about 93% now

five.five-six · Jun 30, 2020

iammrhappy said:

I‘ve already changed the prefilters. WTH 2 systems, I keep those on hand.

I’ll add them to other orders knowing I’ll need them for free shipping and I’ve had trouble at times finding ones clearly identified as chloramine blocks.

Things I know I’ll use, I buy in bulk.

JustAnotherNanoTank · Jun 30, 2020

five.five-six said:

I’m about to give up and buy an entire new RO/DI system. Been about 3 weeks not hat I’ve been troubleshooting my old one. It makes about 4 gallons a day now and I have no idea why. I’v checked and cleaned the restrictor, all the tubing , there’s 70-80 PSI going into the membrane, when I switch the valve to flush, there is plenty of wastewater volume but still, it barely makes enough water to keep up with my evaporation and a water change is just right out of the question. The membrane is only a few years old. I hate to spend the money on an entire new system but I NEED WATER!!!

A few year old membrane should be replaced.

five.five-six · Jun 30, 2020

JustAnotherNanoTank said:

I don’t think so. IMO, if you do proper maintenance on your prefilters, you should expect 10 years from a membrane depending on supply water quality.

I’m thinking that my muni water supply had a phosphate and or nitrate spike a few months ago that caused an algae bloom In my prefilters section.

bvysochin · Jun 30, 2020

The reason for the algae is your 2nd stage carbon block removes chlorine/chloramines which prevent the algae from popping up in the first place. That's why you'll usually see that throughout the system after the 2nd stage. Regardless if it gets hit with direct sunlight or not.

I agree on the membrane, we can usually get about almost a solid 2 years out of ours, but we make roughly 800-1000 gallons a month. Not bad--they they do last a lot longer with good prefilters and a working auto flush.

Be careful with the Dow filmtec's off ebay. They do occasionally have knock off's on there. The true ones used to have a holographic logo on them years ago, if I remember correctly. The fakes looked pretty similar. Havent used them in a while as we switched to the spectrapure tested 99% ones and havent looked back. Not a huge fan of their DI resin but their membranes are on point.

five.five-six · Jun 30, 2020

bvysochin said:

Ya know, the spectrapure was my thinking but several in this thread suggested the dow. hopefully I got a good one

If I’m not getting what I want, Ill just buy a spectrapure. I recently replaced the system in the kitchen (it was 15 years old and several fittings started to leak). My wife had no idea why I was so excited about my first spectrapure system but I’ve always had less expensive systems from other manufactures.

The one thing I didn’t like about the spectrapure was that it came with a capillary restrictor and the instructions say that you many need to trim it for optimal performance. That’s fine but it didn’t give a metric as to how to determine what optimal performance was or how to determine how much to trim

I will say this, spending an extra $50 on a 99% membrane over the course of a few years is going to be money ahead in DI costs.

I’m about to give up. I’ve had it!

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