Aqua FX Mako RoDi issues

[Fumbles]

First post here and I am confused as to what happened. Sorry I’m advance for the length.

My dad gave me a Mako unit he had laying around and we set it up a couple weeks ago with new filters and tapped it into my current ro drinking water supply.

It has 2 ro membrane cartridges, but we only had one new membrane so we bypassed the second cartridge temporarily. Everything worked great and I was making my own water for my reef tank.

I ordered another 100gpd membrane and a check valve(installed after the ro and before the aso) and hooked it all up. Checked to see if it worked and it did.

Now I’m trying to make more(days later) and all I get is waste water with nothing out of the product line. I’ve been doing tons of research and can’t seem to get an answer. I bypassed the second membrane again and that didn’t fix it. The aso is functioning properly and I didn’t have a flow restrictor to start with(internal or external).

Does anyone have an idea as to what might have happened? The only changed was adding another membrane and check valve.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Forsaken77]

You need a flow restrictor. Did you get one?

What's the psi when running? If you have low pressure and no restrictor, water will just flow around the membrane and out the waste line.

I would also take the membrane canister you're not using and remove it. You don't need it anyway, especially with a 100 gpd membrane. It's cluttering up what you have connected. You just have to replace those T's that are connected to it because it looks like the water going to the membrane is split between both housings. That's a problem right there if that's how it's connected.

How did you bypass it? Because both membranes look connected.

It's tough to make sense of what you have going where, especially if there's hosing that's not connected into the system.

There's a YouTube video on how to hook up the ASO kit. Try to get that other membrane housing out of there, and any hose you're not using, to simplify the setup. Just run a straight hose instead of the T for the membrane input. If it's not long enough, you can get a coupler piece at any hardware store for like $1.

Anything you're not using should not have any water going through it or be connected to the system at all.

 

[Fumbles]

You need a flow restrictor. Did you get one?

What's the psi when running? If you have low pressure and no restrictor, water will just flow around the membrane and out the waste line.

I would also take the membrane canister you're not using and remove it. You don't need it anyway, especially with a 100 gpd membrane. It's cluttering up what you have connected. You just have to replace those T's that are connected to it because it looks like the water going to the membrane is split between both housings. That's a problem right there if that's how it's connected.

How did you bypass it? Because both membranes look connected.

It's tough to make sense of what you have going where, especially if there's hosing that's not connected into the system.

There's a YouTube video on how to hook up the ASO kit. Try to get that other membrane housing out of there, and any hose you're not using, to simplify the setup. Just run a straight hose instead of the T for the membrane input. If it's not long enough, you can get a coupler piece at any hardware store for like $1.

Anything you're not using should not have any water going through it or be connected to the system at all.

Thank you very much for the reply.

I didn’t get a flow restrictor yet because it was working fine without one, but I will get one ordered as I understand it’s purpose. I did install a shut off valve to see if that could add back pressure but even with that all the way closed the product water was a trickle.

Psi is about 30 after the pre filters. I can remove the second filter if you don’t think it’s necessary, but that’s how it was run in the past.

By “bypass” I mean I installed a shut off valve on the inlet of the empty canister so water would be forced to enter the other.

All the lines are going somewhere and are hooked up according to the Mako schematic. It looks like a mess but everything there is in use.

I’ll try setting it up as you suggested, but I don’t understand why adding the other membrane caused the issue and setting it back up the way it was prior didn’t fix it.

Fumbles

 

[Fumbles]

Wow I don’t know how I did this, but I mixed up the waste and product on the cartridges. I followed BRS YouTube video and set them up so now they are running in series instead of parallel. Simple mistake.

Sorry to waste your time haha, thanks again!

 

[Forsaken77]

Thank you very much for the reply.

I didn’t get a flow restrictor yet because it was working fine without one, but I will get one ordered as I understand it’s purpose. I did install a shut off valve to see if that could add back pressure but even with that all the way closed the product water was a trickle.

Psi is about 30 after the pre filters. I can remove the second filter if you don’t think it’s necessary, but that’s how it was run in the past.

By “bypass” I mean I installed a shut off valve on the inlet of the empty canister so water would be forced to enter the other.

All the lines are going somewhere and are hooked up according to the Mako schematic. It looks like a mess but everything there is in use.

I’ll try setting it up as you suggested, but I don’t understand why adding the other membrane caused the issue and setting it back up the way it was prior didn’t fix it.

Fumbles

There ya go. Happens to everybody.