limited water changes... next step, overkill

[MaloK]

I always use slightly warmer, but close match and never had any troubles. In very small water changes I don't even think about it.

But, bigger the water change, closer I try to match the temperature.

 

[anewbie]

I have decided to build in a safety into the pumping out of water... I'm using an 8 inch stainless pipe, with a screened end, to draw water from the tanks, for water changes, the weight will keep it positioned, in the tank, and with an elbow on the top, an 8 inch draw pipe, and the screened end, will at maximum, draw water down between 8-9 inches in the tanks.. this will be for regular water changes... I will also have an end I can exchange, that will vacuum gravel, & could be used to pump a tank fully empty if desired... 8-9 inches down, aught to be an acceptable water change percentage, at maximum...

next thought, will be the temperature of the holding tank, which would likely be 68-73 degrees through out the year... I expect most tanks would be OK, with those temperatures, at a 40-50% water change level, but I may need to put a warming mat under the tank, to keep the RO tank at closer to the average aquarium temp???

thoughts???

In my 500 gallon reservior i have a 200 watt aquarium heater which is ample to keep the temp around 76 - the room temp is 70-72 during the winter. During the summer i unplug the heaters. THe room actually has a space heater and i debated with regards to energy the trade off of using the space heater or aquarium heater. Since the room is small a small space heater can easily keep the room in the upper 70s or even 80s - i would not put something under the container and if you hang a heater in the container i would make sure it doesn't touch the plastic.

 

[Magnum Man]

next week, I'll begin increasing my water change percentage.... I'm still bucketing water changes, waste water... I'm pumping in fresh, but, a few parts I need for the suction line, will be here early next week... Mrs. is gone for the weekend quilting, so I'll be routing my drain line, from my tank work area, to the drain... then I can say good-bye to the buckets...

 

[Magnum Man]

WOW!!! overkill achieved... just hooking up to my original water lines ( 1/4 inch feed ) instead of 3/8 inch feed... and into my 100 gallon holding tank, this unit did over 25 gallon the 1st hour... I'll be turning it off / on, until I can get my use up ( encouragement to get going on the 250 gallon, and fill my 2-30 gallon tanks, I haven't refilled yet, in the main group )

pump out parts I need will be here next week, then I can actually use most of this water...

not a good picture, but shows how big this unit is, as the tank below it is a 100 gallon holding tank

 

[Magnum Man]

well... gotta problem... I didn't disconnect the line, and rinse out the prefilters first... now it's not pumping... may have to contact the maker

 

[anewbie]

well... gotta problem... I didn't disconnect the line, and rinse out the prefilters first... now it's not pumping... may have to contact the maker

You have a booster pump on the unit - it likely has a pressure on/off switch that is being triggered.

 

[Magnum Man]

I unplugged it for a half hour, with the water still on, then plugged it back in , and it's working like it did at 1st

 

[Magnum Man]

it started doing the same thing, 15 minutes later... left it un plugged but hooked up over night, and the pump is running, but no pressure, when plugged in this morning...

not being an RO expert, I expect it's one of a couple things... maybe the 1/4 inch feed line is insufficient for it to function, but it ran for a half hour... ( it's set up for 3/8 line )... so I don't think it's that... maybe not disconnecting the line to the membranes, to pre rinse them, that I missed in the 2 pages of start up, listed in the directions, the carbon dust from the huge prefilters plugged up the membrane??? if that's the case, I would think the unit would back flush the membranes to clean them... but maybe the carbon dust won't back flush completely out if the membranes, or it's trying to do that, when I plug it in... or I have a problem with a component???

so I'll be looking to customer service, which is likely not available on the weekend

 

[Magnum Man]

RO unit is pulsing pretty strongly through the rinse drain line... not sure if that part of it's cleaning cycle or not... my previous unit, also had a booster pump, and it did not pulse at all... I tried calling customer service, as yes, normal business hours Monday thru Friday... so I'll keep trying it, when I have time to watch it...

... in the mean time, I'm routing the water change drain line , from the work area, through the rafters, to a drain pipe, that the house softener recharges into... the basement is partially finished, so some areas of the ceiling are open to the rafters, and several areas have sheet rock, that I need to push the hose through, to the next open area... the open areas were left that way for now, for electrical, plumbing and such, service points ( it's a 100 year old house, so many systems aren't upgraded to my standards yet )
also I was pretty sure I had space, but I double checked, and with the 2nd add on breaker box, I still have plenty of breaker spaces, so I'll be running an additional dedicated power circuit... I have one old bank of outlets in my service area, that are tied into an original 15 amp breaker, done before we put an addition on the house, and added additional breaker spaces... I'm thinking I'll move that line to a new dedicated 20 amp breaker, as I've added a feed water pump, with the original RO, and now a water change pump, and I've already been spreading around the heaters, between the old circuits

 

[anewbie]

You can measure the amount of water going done the drain vs what is going into the ro storage tank - one way is to get a gallon jug and see how long it takes both lines to fill it - this will allow you to compute the ro to waste ratio. In my case i want as close to 1:1 as possible; however for others cheaper system you might get 1:2 or 1:3 (that is 1 gallon of good for 3 gallon of waste).

As for your booster pump these system are pretty straight forward - does your system have an auto flusher ?

 

[Magnum Man]

I think so...

 

[Magnum Man]

I let the RO chug away, while I was routing the pumped water drain line for the tanks... got the line run, up in the ceiling , between my drain pipe for the house softener ( on the opposite side of the house ) to the center of my tank work area... at which point I think I'm just going to put a connector to a hose that goes from that line, to the pump outlet on the floor, and the pump inlet will connect to the tank syphon, and gravel vacuum attachments... I may put a ball valve in the gravel vacuum hose to reduce the flow, the pump is a diaphragm pump for plumbing systems to maintain pressure, so it won't hurt the pump at all to restrict. or stall it...

 

[anewbie]

I let the RO chug away, while I was routing the pumped water drain line for the tanks... got the line run, up in the ceiling , between my drain pipe for the house softener ( on the opposite side of the house ) to the center of my tank work area... at which point I think I'm just going to put a connector to a hose that goes from that line, to the pump outlet on the floor, and the pump inlet will connect to the tank syphon, and gravel vacuum attachments... I may put a ball valve in the gravel vacuum hose to reduce the flow, the pump is a diaphragm pump for plumbing systems to maintain pressure, so it won't hurt the pump at all to restrict. or stall it...

If you haven't you should test the float switch to make sure it turns off when the container is full of ro water - else one day you might wake up and find a lot of water on the floor.

 

[Magnum Man]

got a mechanical over flow... a translucent tank so i can monitor the level... the. right side goes into the tank, from the filter... the left side goes to the same drain as the flush water, up through the ceiling, and down to the drain... nothing to fail, but wasted RO water, if "I" should fail...

easy to see the water level...

 

[Magnum Man]

a call to customer service, first thing this morning has them sending me a new Auto Flush valve & Solenoid, as they think it's defective...