RO filter output at 220 ppm? WTF? +rep

I hooked up a Vermilogic RO unit last night. Water 'in' is 230ppm, water 'out' is 220 ppm. I'm thinkin' that my meter is reading particles of carbon that comes out of the filter. Is this what's going on and should I be concerned? Will the output ppm go down eventually?

doot doot...

How may filters and are they in the correct order? I have a five stage with de-ionizer. My water goes in at 600+ PPM and comes out at 12PPM.
Your waste water line should have some sort of restrictor that causes a little back pressure. My system came pre-assembled and all I needed to do was connect the in, out, and waste lines. Something is not right and I did not rinse any of my filter before hand. The actual RO membrane stage should be filtering out any possible carbon dust. If there is not a restrictor on the waste line, I don't think the system can work properly. How fast is your RO water out line? It should be slow, like a trickle.

Sounds like its hooked up wrong. I know it sounds stupid but, do you have it flowing the right direction?

I have a ro/di that takes 150 ppm water and takes it to zero ppm.

It's important to let the filter run for 30 mins the first time you use it. Then test the water after that period and see what you have.

I have to run my filter for about 10-15 mins before i get true 0 ppm water every time i make water.

Thanks alot for the responses guys. The filter I have is a Vermilogic no waste water system:


I'm sure that it's hooked up correctly. My question is that is it likely that the ppm is reading is from the carbon in the filter and if I should be worried about it. It was 400ppm at first and within a few minutes it dropped significantly. Within 30 minutes it dropped to 230ppm and stayed at that after 2 hours running. The manufacturer makes no claim of 0ppm results with the unit.

I looked that up on-line. It says it is a water purification system. No where in the description does is state it is a RO system. I am afraid to say that it seems like a water filter and not a RO system. Without a RO membrane stage that has a waste water line, it is not a RO system.
True RO systems usually run one gallon of waste water down the drain to one gallon of RO water.
Filters can only remove so much, it is the RO membrane that catches and rejects everything that the filters have missed. The filters are really to protect and give longer life to the RO membrane.

Dirty Harry said:

I looked that up on-line. It says it is a water purification system. No where in the description does is state it is a RO system. I am afraid to say that it seems like a water filter and not a RO system. Without a RO membrane stage that has a waste water line, it is not a RO system.
True RO systems usually run one gallon of waste water down the drain to one gallon of RO water.
Filters can only remove so much, it is the RO membrane that catches and rejects everything that the filters have missed. The filters are really to protect and give longer life to the RO membrane.

Click to expand...

Mmm, fine print. Right! Thanks man. +rep

check and see if they have add on modules for your filter system. If it were my time i would insist on zero ppm, it just makes the math with ppm so much simpler starting from zero.

what does it filter. maybe it leaves the cal and mag in so you dont need cal mag! I use tapwater and hardwater nutes and love it.

I'm running a side by side experiment to see if this thing is useless. I will post results in my journal over the next few weeks if you gotta know what happens. Thanks again for the input people!