RO system?
- Thread starter dmaizer
- Start date
atsutane
New Member
i believe the mist king uses a 5gal bucket, you could get a floater asembly and a simple under sink RO filter, and hook the floater up to the RO line and stick it in the bucket much like the top of a toilet tank so you will never have to refill the mistking...
throw some older pennies that have been cleaned to keep things from growing inside the bucket and you will be set.
as for size, it depends on how much water you go through, this can be dertermined when you go to lowes or home depot, get a general idea of how fast the system goes through a 5 gal bucket and get a RO system that fits your needs and lets you replace the filter on a timeline that is convinient for you.... usually the filters for under sink RO systems last 6-12 months
throw some older pennies that have been cleaned to keep things from growing inside the bucket and you will be set.
as for size, it depends on how much water you go through, this can be dertermined when you go to lowes or home depot, get a general idea of how fast the system goes through a 5 gal bucket and get a RO system that fits your needs and lets you replace the filter on a timeline that is convinient for you.... usually the filters for under sink RO systems last 6-12 months
xanthoman
Avid Member
it all depends on how much money you want or are willing to spend ,for about $50 you would probably do fine with a single stage carbon filter under sink kit and just fill your bucket from that, or you could spend $300 or more to get a full blown 4 or 5 stage RO undersink filter with water resevoir so you can draw water at a rate faster than you can filter it. or you could just get a fridge filter instalation kit for about $20 which can easily be plumbed into any 1/4" or similarly sized line
summoner12
Avid Member
The question is about RO so I don't understand the talking about carbon filters. Ro and carbon filters will produce two completely different qualities of water. One will be WATER, H2O with very very very small amounts of anything other than H2O in it (my RO has only 12ppm, 12 parts of something other than water to every 1,000,000 parts of water). a carbon filter will remove bit's like.... rust or chlorine or actual dirt. Getting a carbon filter to remove particles larger then .5 micron runs about 10-20 dollars a filter but.... .5 micron vs. an RO is no contest, RO is far more superior in water quality. they aren't really even on the same playing field
So how much do you want to spend and how much water do you use are the main questions to answer. another ting to ask yourself is 'how much do I want my water bill to be each month'. RO removes particles from water... it separates the water.... so this means there are two outputs to the membrane (ro filter). One outlet is the RO water and the other is called brine. brine is waste and most companies that sell you an RO just have you plumb the waste to the drain under your sink. what you don't realize here is that for one gallon of RO, 4-10 gallons or brine water went down the sink drain. If you answer 'i want my water bill to be the same as before i installed the system' then you need to spend a little more money up front to make the RO system a 'zero waste' system. This is simple. The simple explanation is that you use a pump to push the brine water into the house plumbing to be used again. Brine is clean water, even cleaner than the water in your pipes because it has gone through two or three filters before being rejected from the RO membrane.
My RO ran me a bunch of money because I have two pumps, solenoid valves, a micro controller and relays and a bunch of stuff to make it all automated.
the short answer.... for four cages a 25 gallon per day three stage system would do the trick for you and could be had for about 150 bucks. if you want the zero waste you are looking at another 100-150 dollars.
Let me know if you need more info... but for now, dinner time!
dmaizer
Avid Member
The question is about RO so I don't understand the talking about carbon filters. Ro and carbon filters will produce two completely different qualities of water. One will be WATER, H2O with very very very small amounts of anything other than H2O in it (my RO has only 12ppm, 12 parts of something other than water to every 1,000,000 parts of water). a carbon filter will remove bit's like.... rust or chlorine or actual dirt. Getting a carbon filter to remove particles larger then .5 micron runs about 10-20 dollars a filter but.... .5 micron vs. an RO is no contest, RO is far more superior in water quality. they aren't really even on the same playing field
So how much do you want to spend and how much water do you use are the main questions to answer. another ting to ask yourself is 'how much do I want my water bill to be each month'. RO removes particles from water... it separates the water.... so this means there are two outputs to the membrane (ro filter). One outlet is the RO water and the other is called brine. brine is waste and most companies that sell you an RO just have you plumb the waste to the drain under your sink. what you don't realize here is that for one gallon of RO, 4-10 gallons or brine water went down the sink drain. If you answer 'i want my water bill to be the same as before i installed the system' then you need to spend a little more money up front to make the RO system a 'zero waste' system. This is simple. The simple explanation is that you use a pump to push the brine water into the house plumbing to be used again. Brine is clean water, even cleaner than the water in your pipes because it has gone through two or three filters before being rejected from the RO membrane.
My RO ran me a bunch of money because I have two pumps, solenoid valves, a micro controller and relays and a bunch of stuff to make it all automated.
the short answer.... for four cages a 25 gallon per day three stage system would do the trick for you and could be had for about 150 bucks. if you want the zero waste you are looking at another 100-150 dollars.
Let me know if you need more info... but for now, dinner time!
great info
Todnedo
Avid Member
The question is about RO so I don't understand the talking about carbon filters. Ro and carbon filters will produce two completely different qualities of water. One will be WATER, H2O with very very very small amounts of anything other than H2O in it (my RO has only 12ppm, 12 parts of something other than water to every 1,000,000 parts of water). a carbon filter will remove bit's like.... rust or chlorine or actual dirt. Getting a carbon filter to remove particles larger then .5 micron runs about 10-20 dollars a filter but.... .5 micron vs. an RO is no contest, RO is far more superior in water quality. they aren't really even on the same playing field
So how much do you want to spend and how much water do you use are the main questions to answer. another ting to ask yourself is 'how much do I want my water bill to be each month'. RO removes particles from water... it separates the water.... so this means there are two outputs to the membrane (ro filter). One outlet is the RO water and the other is called brine. brine is waste and most companies that sell you an RO just have you plumb the waste to the drain under your sink. what you don't realize here is that for one gallon of RO, 4-10 gallons or brine water went down the sink drain. If you answer 'i want my water bill to be the same as before i installed the system' then you need to spend a little more money up front to make the RO system a 'zero waste' system. This is simple. The simple explanation is that you use a pump to push the brine water into the house plumbing to be used again. Brine is clean water, even cleaner than the water in your pipes because it has gone through two or three filters before being rejected from the RO membrane.
My RO ran me a bunch of money because I have two pumps, solenoid valves, a micro controller and relays and a bunch of stuff to make it all automated.
the short answer.... for four cages a 25 gallon per day three stage system would do the trick for you and could be had for about 150 bucks. if you want the zero waste you are looking at another 100-150 dollars.
Let me know if you need more info... but for now, dinner time!
You could use a permeate pump to reduce the wastewater by 80%
They are about 60 bucks.
Todnedo
Avid Member
The waste line goes to the hot side of your pumbing.
summoner12
Avid Member
A permeate pump is a pump driven by the permeate (clean RO water). I don't think they have the balls to push water back into the house plumbing but they can increase production when dumping brine into the sink drain. they are anywhere from $60-120... depends where you buy them. a motor driven pump can be had in the higher end of that dollar range of a permeate... depending on where you buy it from.
Personally I don't really think highly of the permeate pumps. you can get a better process and more efficient process with a motor driven pump. again.. initial cost is higher but in the long run better in my opinion. Reasons being... you can drive your tank pressure higher which means you can store more water and if you didn't have a mist pump and only ran a couple of cages you could mist without a pump. the biggest reason is that RO processes the best when it is at about 76-80*F is at 80-90 PSI. a motor driven pump can do two things... make your water faster (because it is at a optimal pressure to the membrane) and can overcome house pressure to make your zero waste system.
Marty,
The zero waste works like this...
say you have two parallel lines drawn on the table in front of you. you have a sack of oranges to the side of you. say you take five oranges from the bag and you place five oranges to the right of the lines. Each orange represents one gallon of water. The sack of oranges represents the city water line. You take one range of the five and place it to the left of the lines and then you put the four remaining oranges between the lines. what you've done is 'filtered' the oranges (or water...). the one orange represents the RO water that you just made when you 'filtered' the oranges and the four oranges in the middle would be the brine and end up down the sink drain, wasted. now you need to take five more oranges out of the bag to make one more gallon....
now... with zero waste..... start over.... filter five oranges.... and when your done place the four ranges back on the right side of the lines. you need one more orange right? Take another orange from the sack, filter the oranges again.... and again and again... each time you make a gallon you need one more 'fresh' gallon from your city (from the sack...). You are recycling the water that didn't make it through the RO membrane and adding another orange with each cycle of the process.
to do zero waste... The idea with the system is that you take the water feeding the RO system from the cold tap under the sink. you boost the pressure of that water to 90PSI with your motor driven pump. This feeds the RO system at a optimum pressure and the brine coming out of the RO membrane will be higher than the pressure in your house. Since the pressure of the brine is higher than the house water, the water will flow into the house system. You use the hot water tap under the sink because the water has to travel farther to get back to the RO membrane. if you hooked it right up to the cold tap the water would go right back to the RO system.... this water isn't 'dirty' but it has more dissolved solids in the water than it did before it was 'filtered' or seperated. This is because the RO membrane only took the 'good water' and rejected the rest. The remaining water has 'stuff' in it that the RO membrane rejected, making it a higher concentration. Again, this isn't 'dirty' water... but if this water went back to the membrane it would have to reject more 'stuff' and the more 'stuff' you throw at the membrane the faster you 'foil' the membrane. So you ask "well won't it all get back to the membrane eventually?' Yes....... and no..... lol. Since the brine is going into the hot water side of your home's water system, it has a long way to travel before it gets back to the membrane. the idea is that you flush a toilet..... and use up some of that brine... or you wash your hands, or you do a load of laundry... or dishes.... your house is always using water and most likely the brine in the system will flush out or be diluted by the time it reaches your RO membrane again. Also don't forget, you took one gallon, or one orange out of the 'pool' so the city will replace that into your home's system.. so slowly as you filter you dilute the brine even if you aren't flushing our the brine by flushing toilets, washing hands ect.......
Personally I don't really think highly of the permeate pumps. you can get a better process and more efficient process with a motor driven pump. again.. initial cost is higher but in the long run better in my opinion. Reasons being... you can drive your tank pressure higher which means you can store more water and if you didn't have a mist pump and only ran a couple of cages you could mist without a pump. the biggest reason is that RO processes the best when it is at about 76-80*F is at 80-90 PSI. a motor driven pump can do two things... make your water faster (because it is at a optimal pressure to the membrane) and can overcome house pressure to make your zero waste system.
Marty,
The zero waste works like this...
say you have two parallel lines drawn on the table in front of you. you have a sack of oranges to the side of you. say you take five oranges from the bag and you place five oranges to the right of the lines. Each orange represents one gallon of water. The sack of oranges represents the city water line. You take one range of the five and place it to the left of the lines and then you put the four remaining oranges between the lines. what you've done is 'filtered' the oranges (or water...). the one orange represents the RO water that you just made when you 'filtered' the oranges and the four oranges in the middle would be the brine and end up down the sink drain, wasted. now you need to take five more oranges out of the bag to make one more gallon....
now... with zero waste..... start over.... filter five oranges.... and when your done place the four ranges back on the right side of the lines. you need one more orange right? Take another orange from the sack, filter the oranges again.... and again and again... each time you make a gallon you need one more 'fresh' gallon from your city (from the sack...). You are recycling the water that didn't make it through the RO membrane and adding another orange with each cycle of the process.
to do zero waste... The idea with the system is that you take the water feeding the RO system from the cold tap under the sink. you boost the pressure of that water to 90PSI with your motor driven pump. This feeds the RO system at a optimum pressure and the brine coming out of the RO membrane will be higher than the pressure in your house. Since the pressure of the brine is higher than the house water, the water will flow into the house system. You use the hot water tap under the sink because the water has to travel farther to get back to the RO membrane. if you hooked it right up to the cold tap the water would go right back to the RO system.... this water isn't 'dirty' but it has more dissolved solids in the water than it did before it was 'filtered' or seperated. This is because the RO membrane only took the 'good water' and rejected the rest. The remaining water has 'stuff' in it that the RO membrane rejected, making it a higher concentration. Again, this isn't 'dirty' water... but if this water went back to the membrane it would have to reject more 'stuff' and the more 'stuff' you throw at the membrane the faster you 'foil' the membrane. So you ask "well won't it all get back to the membrane eventually?' Yes....... and no..... lol. Since the brine is going into the hot water side of your home's water system, it has a long way to travel before it gets back to the membrane. the idea is that you flush a toilet..... and use up some of that brine... or you wash your hands, or you do a load of laundry... or dishes.... your house is always using water and most likely the brine in the system will flush out or be diluted by the time it reaches your RO membrane again. Also don't forget, you took one gallon, or one orange out of the 'pool' so the city will replace that into your home's system.. so slowly as you filter you dilute the brine even if you aren't flushing our the brine by flushing toilets, washing hands ect.......
The trouble is where does the water go? Here's what I think, and correct me if I'm wrong...I think the RO displaces the water out of the hosue into the plumbing outside your house...which means, the water that you paid for, is now pushed out of the house and then when say you flush the toilet or wash your hands, that water passes through the meter again, so in essance you're paying for it twice now. The city meter only counts water as it's coming into the hosue, not as it being pushed through the meter. They coined the term "Zero Waste" true...you're not wasting the water, you're pumping it into the system... It's also Zero Saving system.
summoner12
Avid Member
If you read my analogy again. you have one orange being placed to the left of the lines each time the cycle is complete. that one orange represents 'RO water' that is no longer in your home's water system. The RO is in a tank or in a bucket or sprayed onto your chameleons. Since the orange (or gallon of water) that sits to the left of the lines is no longer in the home's system, you have to take another orange from the sack (or take another gallon from the city pipe).
If that was just as confusing as the post I made before.... I am going to confuse you some more. Think of it like this. when you process RO you get water that has been processed using RO (reverse osmosis), right? it is in your tank or bucket, not in your home pipes. so since it is no longer in the pipes you need to get more water to 'refill' the system. the meter is outside of you home. one pipe comes to the house from the street, and a meter is placed there on the side of your house. water comes from the street, through the meter and into the home. you open your sink tap and water flows.... water flows past the meter, you are charged for that water use. now, imagine your family tree, you have your great great great grand parents at the top... and as their kids have kids the tree splits.... this is how your house plumbing would look if you put it on a piece of paper. every pipe splits.... first thing to split off is a pipe to a hot water heater to be warmed and then the other half of that split is cold water. the hot water line splits off to go to the first floor, then splits again to go to a bathroom, then to a kitchen, then again to a bathroom.... the cold water does the same thing..... these water lines are parallel but do not flow into one another right? well when you hook up zero waste in your home you essentially take cold water and create a loop and push that water back down the hot water pipe. but before you do that, you remove some of it to make RO water. The brine is rejected from the membrane, but some water is removed from the house system (the RO water). the brine is the only water pushed back into the house. The brine then back tracks through all of those splits on the hot water pipe and follows the 'tree' of plumbing back to the water heater to the original split, the big great great great grand daddy of all the 'splits'..... and then instead of going back out to the city, it joins a small amount of fresh city water and goes down the cold water pipe, back to the RO membrane. because the membrane removes water from the house system, more water has to replace it, that is fresh city water.
summoner12
Avid Member
so maybe the thread above is confusing... maybe this isn't as confusing.....
water comes into house, splits, water from the street can go to the hot water heater or to your cold water line. when the RO is making RO it takes water from the cold line. At the same time the RO is splitting up the cold water between good and bad. bad goes out of the "RO membrane" through that black line to the hot water line. The good water goes to the tank. this water is no longer 'in the system' it has been removed from the pipes of your house. since the pipes always hold the same volume of water, the water being removed to the RO tank must be replaced. so for every drop of "RO" water you get another drop worth of water from the street. the brine that is recirculating through your house has no reason to go out of the house because your home is still requiring fresh water to replenish the water that has been removed from the house into the RO tank.
A RO membrane sorts water. it takes good water out of your pipes and into a tank. the remaining water gets dumped. with zero waste you are just pushing that 'waste' water back into the house but still keeping the RO separate, in it's own tank, out of the house system. so since that water is out of the house system, the city has to add more to your house.
summoner12
Avid Member
Most RO systems have a carbon filter.... carbon filters remove chlorine. some are meant to last longer and remove more chlorine than others..... and if you buy an ebay RO system you are getting total POS filters......
a note for those looking at systems.... the money is in the filters. buying the hardware to make the RO 'system' isn't that much, the money is spent on filters. so if you see a cheap system with lots of bells and whistles on eBay.... be sure to get specs on the filters. they most likely won't impress you, or even tell you. they'll say something simple like 'carbon filter' and/or 'sediment filter''. you need and want these... but you pay more for a sediment filter that removes smaller bits than a filter that only filters out larger bits. same goes for carbon filters..... they rate them as to how much water can flow through before the filter can't absorb anymore chlorine.
I always thought that for every 1 drop of RO you create 4-8 drops of brine (bad water). Since you cannot 'squeeze' more water into the house pipes, because there's only so much water that 'fits' into the plumbing system and as soon as you remove that 1 drop of water into the RO tank, that drop is instantly replaced and pushed into the pipes from the city supply. Now you have 8 drops that are in the RO system (water that already came out of your house plumbing and is being processed in the filters) that needs to go back into the plumbing...well 8 drops you could probably squeeze in... so lets assume you just made 1 gal of RO, so now you have to push 4-8 gal of brine back into the house plumbing, but there's no room, so where do you push that water ? So how do I inject 8 gal of water over say 15 min back into the house plumbing?
Todnedo
Avid Member
That Informstion is incorrect.
No a permeate pump is not to be used in a zero waste system.
But used by itself it will reduce wastewater by 80% increase tank pressure 35% and reduce recoverly time. Here is a link on how it works.
http://www.permeate-pump.com/ERP1000_anim02.htm
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summoner12
Avid Member
the process is happening all at once. the RO puts one drop in your tank and 4 drops go out the brine tube. that means your house is missing 5 drops right? but because the 4 drops going down the brine tube are at a higher pressure than the house, they flow back into the house before the city can put 5 more drops into the house. since the house only actually needs 1 more drop (because the RO removed only one and put back 4) the city only provides one drop.
The loop of all this is within your home. you are not adding more water to your house than you started with. how could you? you just took water out of the system.
do my orange analogy in front of you with real oranges (or paper clips or whatever you have available) and it'll make sense.
summoner12
Avid Member
nice link, but please explain yourself. making such a bold statement and not even identifying what is incorrect....
if you are referring to te permeate pump, what i said is correct.they can't be used in a zero waste system so that means they have to be used when the brine is dumped down the sink drain. and yes, the cost of them is in the range of price I stated, depending on where you buy them.
