RODI Not Putting Out 0 TDS

Woodyman

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I’ll double check the tubing again today. And yeah the colors are a mess, it’s what I had left for lengths that worked. I may reorder some rodi tubing to make it actually color coded

It's a pain but redoing it with proper color coding would be helpful.
 

ying yang

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Never done it but here a brs video that may help you some.also if I was you I would read some other threads on r2r about rodi issues and maybe answer in one of them that you seek
I'm a plumber of 20 some years but only installed 1 rodi unit which is mine and I bought ready made unit and other than that was few fridges or under sink ro units for taps which just followed instructions so easy peasy ha ha
 

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Also, how do you go about de-gassing water? Do you have to just disturb the surface in a collection bucket before it goes into the rodi unit?
@KStatefan does this. There's another thread he recently posted in.. let me find that link and I'll edit..

Edit:

Here it is.
 

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@KStatefan does this. There's another thread he recently posted in.. let me find that link and I'll edit..

Edit:

Here it is.

This would be hard to do in an apartment. I would check to see if you have CO2 first. Going to a three chamber DI system would be a good addition.

There might be more info on my water system in my build thread.
 
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Just looking at your piping on this page and diagram you showed on page 2,it seems your piping is piped up wrong,like top exit of membrane = should be blue piping ( produce water ) and go in port 5 but you got black pipe going in port 3 and bottom exit point on membrane looks like using blue tubing instead of red ( waste water) and can see it exit membrane then go into a tee then dissapears but then see another blue pipe going into port 1 when waste water should go into port 3.

So if I was you I would re- check all your pipework and make sure all correctly piped ( doesn't matter colour pipes you use for each stage of rodi but helps if all waste water,incoming water and filteted water all colour coded as easier for you to track pipes and also easier to read the tds whether you got dual,triple or quad tds reader)

Maybe your tubing is piped up correctly and your turned membrane upside down or I'm not tracing the piping correctly if so fair enough .

Also from your water report I read you get your water from 1- 3 Wells in your area on average ,I'm sure I've read other rodi problem threads and it's been mentioned excess c02 from well water and it had to be de- gassed.

Also pack in your di resin really tight

Anyway good luck ,just thought I'd point out what it looks like on your tubing

Screenshot_20220112-130852_Chrome.jpg Screenshot_20220112-131221_Chrome.jpg
From what I can tell from the BRS tv video I watched, the membrane in that diagram must be flipped facing the opposite way. Looking at the membrane from the direction that my picture was taken, it appears to be connected correctly with the top connection being waste and bottom being product water
C71D7D26-5345-4CC2-B6E2-A3A691C6DDBF.png
 

ying yang

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Correct. I have a valve between the bucket and the output from the entire system so that I can move the bucket wherever I need the water. Otherwise nothing else has been added beyond what the diagram shows. I am going to verify quick that my ro lines are exactly the same as this diagram they provide

55AAFC21-CB9D-4CE8-BDB6-D50E3D04324E.jpeg

From what I can tell from the BRS tv video I watched, the membrane in that diagram must be flipped facing the opposite way. Looking at the membrane from the direction that my picture was taken, it appears to be connected correctly with the top connection being waste and bottom being product water
C71D7D26-5345-4CC2-B6E2-A3A691C6DDBF.png
Fair enough if it's correct then it's correct,I was just going off the diagram you showed on page 2....

But easy way to check from your above picture is that the product water sticks out more to outside edge of the membrane

Screenshot_20220112-150042_Chrome.jpg
 
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Fair enough if it's correct then it's correct,I was just going off the diagram you showed on page 2....

But easy way to check from your above picture is that the product water sticks out more to outside edge of the membrane

Screenshot_20220112-150042_Chrome.jpg
Gotcha, yeah the product line is connected to the output that sticks out more
 

ying yang

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I was just going off this diagram you posted
Correct. I have a valve between the bucket and the output from the entire system so that I can move the bucket wherever I need the water. Otherwise nothing else has been added beyond what the diagram shows. I am going to verify quick that my ro lines are exactly the same as this diagram they provide

55AAFC21-CB9D-4CE8-BDB6-D50E3D04324E.jpeg
Ok cool see your reply above.
Ok if its correct then it's correct.
Got nothing more to help you unfortunately .wish you good luck ^_^
 
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I was just going off this diagram you posted

Ok cool see your reply above.
Ok if its correct then it's correct.
Got nothing more to help you unfortunately .wish you good luck ^_^
Thank you for the advice!! I appreciate anyone that is willing to help, this has been a very confusing problem for me :D Hopefully I can figure it out at some point lol
 
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Todays test is resulting in 23 TDS out of the membrane. I bypassed the DI stage to stop depleating it while I troubleshoot. I tested the product water and I am seeing an alakalinity reading of around 40 and maybe some total chlorine?

34E0D8E0-57FF-426A-B57F-95718A0811FC.jpeg

25CE0FFD-1A40-4AD9-B220-AD98E51F9FC5.jpeg


I do have an extra sediment filter and carbon block. I wonder if I should replace them and just see what happens. The CO2 reading on the test strip is just impossible to tell (those first 3 colors look the same to me)
 

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Todays test is resulting in 23 TDS out of the membrane. I bypassed the DI stage to stop depleating it while I troubleshoot. I tested the product water and I am seeing an alakalinity reading of around 40 and maybe some total chlorine?

34E0D8E0-57FF-426A-B57F-95718A0811FC.jpeg

25CE0FFD-1A40-4AD9-B220-AD98E51F9FC5.jpeg


I do have an extra sediment filter and carbon block. I wonder if I should replace them and just see what happens. The CO2 reading on the test strip is just impossible to tell (those first 3 colors look the same to me)

Not sure that is your problem, but at this point it my be worth a try. The other thing which I don't think is the case, would be to try a new RO.

You shouldn't have damaged or ruined the current one by not having it seated correctly. But now that it is properly seated and you've checked your connections I'm not sure what else to check.. let me keep thinking and hopefully I come up with something.
 

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What is your source water pressure without using the RO buddy booster.. it may be worth the time to try running the system without that hooked up and see what type of numbers you get.

Also have you checked the flow rates of product and waste water? Maybe you have a bad restrictor from BRS, it shouldn't be bad being new, but at this point I'm just thinking about all the possible issues you could be having.
 
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I checked and tried reseating the membrane again just to get pictures and verify
 

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Woodyman

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I checked and tried reseating the membrane again just to get pictures and verify

Is the seal around the membrane completely in tact with no tears or holes?

Another thing, when you last installed your carbon did you flush that intial purge eater down the drain for a couple minutes to remove the carbon fines? If not you may have damaged the membranes with all the carbon fines and that would explain your higher TDS values.
 
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Is the seal around the membrane completely in tact with no tears or holes?

Another thing, when you last installed your carbon did you flush that intial purge eater down the drain for a couple minutes to remove the carbon fines? If not you may have damaged the membranes with all the carbon fines and that would explain your higher TDS values.
Ahhh, that may have been the issue. Last time I ran it for about and hour and disposed of the final product water. I didn’t realize you are supposed to bypass the membrane and dispose of that water when replacing the carbon block
 

ying yang

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Ahhh, that may have been the issue. Last time I ran it for about and hour and disposed of the final product water. I didn’t realize you are supposed to bypass the membrane and dispose of that water when replacing the carbon block
Yeah manufacturer I get mine from says rinse under tap then install carbon block then unhook rodi tubing after carbon and let drain into a bucket till runs clear
 
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Yeah manufacturer I get mine from says rinse under tap then install carbon block then unhook rodi tubing after carbon and let drain into a bucket till runs clear
It’s definitely possible that could have cooked my membrane then. I didn’t do that prior to putting in a new carbon block
 

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Are you doing a flush before each use? But if you are getting 550 from your source and 36 after membrane that is 93.5% rejection rate which you'd have to look at your membrane specs but most should do at least 90% before they start to go bad.

If you are not I would be running dual DI, The color change normally happens after the creep happens so if you have dual then it will run into the second before you see it then switch it. I also run a second membrane that helps to double the water I can make and helps with the waste water as the waste from the first membrane goes into the source for the second membrane. It is a bit harder to track when the membrane needs to be switched as you would need to have two meters for both out to know for sure.

I've been struggling with red cyano again; and my corals haven't been happy for about a month.

The issue I found is that my RODI membrane is putting our 36 TDS and the DI resin is only polishing it down to 8 TDS. I'm not sure how I missed this. So I've been cleaning out the cyano with water changes only to put that crap water back in. For reference, my city water is 550 TDS

There is still plenty of good DI resin left in the 4th stage, but I wonder if I should add a second DI resin stage. I am using the RO/DI Buddy booster pump which puts my 100 GPH unit at ~ 90 PSI, so that shouldn't be an issue. Is 36TDS out of the membrane good, or is that still too high?
 

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It’s definitely possible that could have cooked my membrane then. I didn’t do that prior to putting in a new carbon block

If that's the case the carbon fines would cause the membrane to prematurely go bad. So that may be the best TDS output your going to get until a new membrane is installed.

I have a bypass valve after my carbon blocks so that when I install a new one it flushes down the drain for a good 5-10+ minutes before I send any water to the membrane.
 
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