On well H2O, RO unit is only 1 GPH. Is it worth it?

Hi,

I used to be on city water, chlorinated and fluorinated when I bought a 5 stage RO unit. Now, I'm on well water and its about 240 PPM and my RO outputs 10-20PPM, BUT it takes an hour per gallon at 30PSI. I'm coming up on my first water change and it's really a pain in the ass to wait 25 hrs. for my water, plus my well pump controller keeps reseting and doesn't like being left on for a day. I got some browning on a plant and I got a Cal Mag supplement yesterday and when added it raises my PPM to pre RO levels. So what's the point?

I drink my water straight from the tap and it tastes damn good why can't my plants?

Thanks, as always!

I give my plants tap.....straight from the tap with just a touch of warm water running also...to be specific
and they do fine

But http://www.rainsoft.com/products/water-conditioning-systems/ec4-water-conditioner.cfm... http://www.rainsoft.com/products/drinking-water-systems/ultrefiner-ii-drinking-water-systems.cfm
I have those installed in my house....could give pure water anytime I want.. so I don't really understand what your saying..
I can wash my car, take a shower etc in pure water...why does it take you forever...just an old system?

qwizoking said:

I can wash my car, take a shower etc in pure water...why does it take you forever...just an old system?

Click to expand...

Well those are really large whole-home conditioners. I'm using an RO unit with 1/4" tubing (table top) and my water pressure is low. It just takes about 1 GPH to get pure water for me.

I guess what I'm asking is, If I'm on a well and don't need to remove chlorine, do I really need to go through this effort to get pure water, then just to use calmag to add the stuff I removed.

Also with RO water it was easy to see how many nutes were in there just looking at PPM. So on my water change if my nutes are suposed to be at 300ppm do I just add that on top of my 240ppm tap water giving me 540ppm?

I give my plants unfiltered tap..the problem is you don't know what that ppm is and what it may do. If it was all Cal mag and chlorine it would be dandy but in what ratios is it..
Yes you add your amount of nutes to whatever ppm your water is..

qwizoking said:

I give my plants unfiltered tap..the problem is you don't know what that ppm is and what it may do. If it was all Cal mag and chlorine it would be dandy but in what ratios is it..
Yes you add your amount of nutes to whatever ppm your water is..

Click to expand...

My tap water has EC 0.5 so I have to add Nutes accordingly and take readings to ensure it stays within bounds.

Now I have set up a rain water collection system (barrel) and I use 60litres rain to 40 litres Tap - 0.2EC
Perfect baseline for adding nutes.

In all honesty I've never measured ppm ec or ph
I just judge the plants response....I'm a lazy grower like that
....not saying that's the best way lol, works though...faster learning curve too

My well water is 170-200 ppm's and at first (fyi newb) I had some real issues dialling in things but would have been the same with RO. I kept really good records and now (12 runs later) things are going good just tweaking the shit now lol.

Opps hit send. IMO well water is just fine to use if you know there is no contaminates in it. I do use my base ppm's and include them in levels but I dont think thats the recommended norm, i'm a light feeder I guess! I run a res at around 600 ish total ppm's and plants do pretty good. PH was an issue and again notes really helped. I now add 75 ml to 135 liters to get 5.8-5.9. Also if you really wanted RO you could do a bunch of small runs and store it in one large res. i actually ran a 1/4 inch line to my area for just that but never hooked it up lol.

You get a plastic fifty five gallon barrel, hook up your ro to a float shut off valve that fills up the barrel, put air stone in for water movement and oxygen. The res is your clean water storage, I just use a five gallon bucket to get the water out I need and when I'm done it fills up to the float and shuts off. Then it doesn't matter if it takes 1gph it'll always be full when you need water.

When is the last time your pressure tank on the well feed changed out? Those bladders don't last then pump cycles a lot killing the pump. You can get a booster pump for the ro filter.

yes, get a barrel and a booster pump. you'll be making 50 gallons in like 10 hrs.

Chronicpains,
To get better performance from your RO, you will need a boost pump and sounds like your well pressure tank is a little small. Taking all that into consideration...I would just use your well water. Many nutrients are tailored for a tapwater ppm at near that level. And the ones that aren't offer hard water micro (well some do). So not to worry.
JD

This is is the artesian water ro system from the perfect water.com the permeat pump is to the right of the unit. With the pump and proper pressure it can have a 1:1 ratio of waste water to good water.

Just a question: Are you running a membrane flush on your RO Unit when you start it up? Water with a lot of dissolved minerals can cause the membrane to "clog" and reduce flow.
Also, if the well water is very cold, you can use a booster pump to get more pressure on the membrane.

chronicpains said:

Well those are really large whole-home conditioners. I'm using an RO unit with 1/4" tubing (table top) and my water pressure is low. It just takes about 1 GPH to get pure water for me.

I guess what I'm asking is, If I'm on a well and don't need to remove chlorine, do I really need to go through this effort to get pure water, then just to use calmag to add the stuff I removed.

Also with RO water it was easy to see how many nutes were in there just looking at PPM. So on my water change if my nutes are suposed to be at 300ppm do I just add that on top of my 240ppm tap water giving me 540ppm?

Click to expand...

Can you use a booster pump? It is an option on my Hydro Logic. If you can get 50 or 60 pounds that is much better.

And no. Total PPM is all that counts. Starting at 240 is too much already, no room for nutes. I had the same problem. If is a consolation, Diluting 2 RO to 1 Tap will give you 80 ppm. That's about what I get.

Hey, you just increased production by 1/3. Not bad.

madmike1337 said:

Just a question: Are you running a membrane flush on your RO Unit when you start it up? Water with a lot of dissolved minerals can cause the membrane to "clog" and reduce flow.
Also, if the well water is very cold, you can use a booster pump to get more pressure on the membrane.

Click to expand...

i run my ro through my water softened water. The way an ro system operates it gets better flow and longer membrane life running that way.

You mean the water softener first, I hope.

I do that too. Much easier on the RO unit to deal with sodium than calcium.

Doer said:

You mean the water softener first, I hope.

I do that too. Much easier on the RO unit to deal with sodium than calcium.

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I run before mine before softener my plants love it lol! J/k

yea after for sure! The water softener takes a lot of bs out to begin with and it's way easier on your system. The last time I changed my filters it was almost a year after the recommended change and it was still reading normal. I changed them anyways just on good measure