Anyone ever use cheaper alternatives for RODI components?

Wayofthereef

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I'm also on well water, which I feel like can be a bit scarier. I am in a agricultural/rural part of my town and fear pesticides or other nasty **** getting into my well. Not even sure on how well water systems work tbh.
You know thats a good point... my well is 600ft and I do ICP tests every 4 weeks so you can give that a try.. Im here in California so the state pays for annual water testing of private wells so I take advantage of that and the report covers pesticides and other contaminants. Home depot offers free well water testing too i believe
 

spsick

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freshwatersystems.com.

Been buying from them for years now. I buy tubing and RO fittings from them, too.

I also only use Dow Filmtec membranes but membranes always seem to last forever. I don't replace them unless I've moved, didn't setup the RO filter right away, and didn't make any effort to preserve the membrane properly.
Awesome thanks!
 

Johnd651

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You know thats a good point... my well is 600ft and I do ICP tests every 4 weeks so you can give that a try.. Im here in California so the state pays for annual water testing of private wells so I take advantage of that and the report covers pesticides and other contaminants. Home depot offers free well water testing too i believe
Ny well here... wish the state paid for testing. Have done the home depot test before, but it's very basic.
 

gbroadbridge

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99% of vendors are the same on Amazon. You also can’t trust that an item wasn’t opened and returned. You’ll never know if that membrane has been used and swapped. That stuff happens all the time.

My wife literally got a dress the other day that was altered and still had safety pins in it and someone had hemmed it. Said it was new and sealed in the bag.

I’d trust sediment or carbon blocks. I wouldn’t trust a membrane.
Interesting. Must only be Amazon US as I've never seen an opened item delivered from locally.

In any case the best bet is to support your local drinking water filter shop rather than a company that uplabels everything as 'reef'.

RODI systems are everywhere and are very cheap to run.

I think I pay $10 for US made 1 micron carbon blocks which are perfectly good for humans and corals :)
 

Baby Damsel 219

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i use tap water

6462188f783c534f81ea06ae5e0e0ab2.jpg
 

JNalley

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i use tap water

6462188f783c534f81ea06ae5e0e0ab2.jpg
That is an image from one of Michael Paletta's articles on Reef Builders... @Mike Paletta can you weigh in here? This tank you used in your article, was it a tap water tank? And what are your feelings about using Tap water in a Reef Aquarium?


Edit: Upon further investigation, this seems to be an image that ReefBreeders uses over and over, featured first in an article about Masano Shibuya's tank in Japan, here's the video they feature in the article So maybe Mike won't know for sure.


But that raises a question, why are you using someone else's image/tank to support your use of Tap Water. Seems pretty fraudulent if you ask me...
 
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Wayofthereef

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I haven't gone the cheap route so I can't speak to these. I just know there are a lot of fakes on Amazon. I do wonder about the RO membrane when they say it will last 2 to 3 years. A good membrane should last double that unless you are making a ton of water or don't take care of it. I personally know I have bad water, it is normally over 400 tds and I get around 4 to 6 out of my membrane. I also went with a .2 micron prefilter which I paid more for but it is supposed to last a year or 2 and not just 6 months.

You don't say, but if you aren't already running 150gpd, you will also need to get a new flow restrictor to match the gpd.
It does not last that long, roughly a year and I started showing 1 TDS.
 

Baby Damsel 219

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That is an image from one of Michael Paletta's articles on Reef Builders... @Mike Paletta can you weigh in here? This tank you used in your article, was it a tap water tank? And what are your feelings about using Tap water in a Reef Aquarium?


Edit: Upon further investigation, this seems to be an image that ReefBreeders uses over and over, featured first in an article about Masano Shibuya's tank in Japan, here's the video they feature in the article So maybe Mike won't know for sure.


But that raises a question, why are you using someone else's image/tank to support your use of Tap Water. Seems pretty fraudulent if you ask me...

I love using tap water, It works well. I have 14 softies, 5 LPS, and 2 SpS corals. Sorry for the pic did not have a picture of it on my new phone so this is why I used this image. Very sorry
 

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal

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I love using tap water, It works well. I have 14 softies, 5 LPS, and 2 SpS corals. Sorry for the pic did not have a picture of it on my new phone so this is why I used this image. Very sorry
And based on your other posts, the corals aren't doing very well
 

JNalley

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And based on your other posts, the corals aren't doing very well
and you initially thought it was a joke....

It died because my cbs kept taking its food my hammer and other corals are doing just fine
This is not why your duncan died, they're perfectly happy surviving on light alone, they're mainly a photosynthetic creature (as are most coral). The occasional zooplankton and phytoplankton broadcast can be beneficial, but not required for survival...
 

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