Waste water from your Ro/Di?

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Mkissane

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What if I ran it to fill my pool? Does anyone thing that would be a problem? Water evaporation in my pool is a problem!
You might want to research that first. All the extra minerals could have an impact on you pool plaster/liner and equipment. Just a thought.
 

DaddyFish

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I tried creative ways to use the waste water. I generate about 60-gallons RODI per week at roughly a 1.7:1 ratio. My thought has been to utilize the head pressure available from the waste line to rise upwards roughly 7-10 feet and fill a poly holding tank with a float valve. Gravity will provide enough pressure at floor level below to slowly fill toilet tanks.

All that plumbing, tank support etc. will be a cold weather project at best. Up to now my energy has been focused on getting the waste/RO ratio down from the 3.5:1 where I started so I'm not wasting so much water in the front-end of the process.

I'm on community well system with good sediment filtration, but chlorination and pH/kH contaminants that vary widely with weather trends. Blending hot and cold water to feed the RO system with 80-85F incoming, combined with a pressure boost pump yielding consistent water pressure of 80-90 psi made HUGE differences in my yield ratio.

I run a whole-house 3-stage system (5-micron Sediment, GAC, Carbon Block), then a 3-stage pre-filter for the RO system (1-micron Sediment, Carbon Block, Carbon Block) then the RO membrane and two DI stages. RO/DI holding tank is 29-gallons with heater and in-tank UV.

Needless to say I'm no longer concerned (much) with how they dork around with chlorination and other things at the community well. Odds are it will get caught somewhere along the pathway to my tanks!
 

Pete Witteried

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I start the washer and let it start to fill a bit. Once that happens I pause the load and dump in about 5 or so gallons. No more than that because I don’t know if this would cause any long term problems.

Does anyone know if that could hurt the washer?

We have been using ours in the washing machine for both wash and rinse cycles for over 4 years. Have not had any troubles. Thats almost 30 gallons a load.

I have four trash cans with three syphoning into one where I use the backup pump for the aquarium to pump water to the laudry room. The hose comes out of the wall right next to the machine and I wired a switch there also to turn the pump on and off.

I also run the drain line from my air conditioner to the same storage system wich adds anouther 15 gallons a week.
 
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jdstank

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I haven't seen anyone do this before, but I'm thinking about using the waste water to automatically fill my toilet tank. When someone flushes, a float sensor in the toilet water tank turns open a solenoid located just before my RO membrane (but after the carbon filter) to make clean water and waste water to fill my toilet tank. The clean water will be automatically stored in a pressurized water container (located between the RO and DI), while at the same time the waste water will fill up my toilet. I plan to get rid of the automatic shut off valve, and let the float switch shut off the solenoid once the toilet tank is filled up, stopping any water from entering the RODI system. Even if my pressurized tank is full with clean water the solenoid will allow water to still pass through the drain line and fill my toilet since I got rid of the automatic shut off valve. Instead I will use a check valve to make sure water doesn't go backwards from the pressurized tank.

The XP AQUA RO/DI flood guardian has all the features needed with water level sensor and solenoid.

Let me know if I'm overlooking anything or if I should keep the automatic shut off valve.
The main problem with starting and stopping RO/DI systems is the TDS creep you get. If you’ve never closely monitored your system you’ll notice you get a drastic rise in TDS at start up and after a few minutes it calms back down to usually single digits. Mine usually spikes around 74 but we have good water to begin with. Well and other city water may spike even more. This ends up consuming your resin much faster than having the portion that comes out at start up purged before going through resin which is the proper way to do it if you want to make your resin last longer.
 
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Gkrockman

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I have my R/O unit attached to my garden hose and drain the waste water to my pool to supplement the loss of water from evaporation in my pool.
 

Buckster

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I use the waste water to fill a small pool for my dog! I'm still waiting for the upgrade kit to become available so I will have less waste.
 

Kate Vellis

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Hey all,

I have been in the hobby now for about 2-3 years for this second tank and a year or so prior.

When we look for information in this hobby we hope to gather as much outside experience from other reefers before we do something. Well sometimes. Lol. However for this post I wanted to hear how other use their waste water.

I then thought This would be a great way to also maybe encourage people who don’t reuse the water and just let it go down the drain. As we all know, we as hobbyists should have a greater awareness for things like this.


I personally gather my waste water and use it for the laundry.

I was planning possibly running a line to the outside for watering the gardens.

Does anyone have any other ideas and or ways to set stuff up this sort of thing?
We are pretty new to the hobby. We bought a small rodi system that we installed above the laundry sink in the utility room. We run a long siphon from a 5 gallon waste bucket out the back door and connected to hose that I can move it to the various plants in the backyard. I have a couple of large bananas that are really enjoying the extra water.
 

BighohoReef

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I haven't seen anyone do this before, but I'm thinking about using the waste water to automatically fill my toilet tank. When someone flushes, a float sensor in the toilet water tank turns open a solenoid located just before my RO membrane (but after the carbon filter) to make clean water and waste water to fill my toilet tank. The clean water will be automatically stored in a pressurized water container (located between the RO and DI), while at the same time the waste water will fill up my toilet. I plan to get rid of the automatic shut off valve, and let the float switch shut off the solenoid once the toilet tank is filled up, stopping any water from entering the RODI system. Even if my pressurized tank is full with clean water the solenoid will allow water to still pass through the drain line and fill my toilet since I got rid of the automatic shut off valve. Instead I will use a check valve to make sure water doesn't go backwards from the pressurized tank.

The XP AQUA RO/DI flood guardian has all the features needed with water level sensor and solenoid.

Let me know if I'm overlooking anything or if I should keep the automatic shut off valve.
I’ve thought about doing this exact thing. If you end up doing this you should definitely add it to the DIY forum!
 

DeniseAndy

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I used to have it hooked up to a 100g barrel outside for watering the yard and such. However, since we moved it to the basement, not an option. Still trying to find a good use.
 

BighohoReef

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Here are some of the results of my waste water treatment in my garden (my outdoor reef, anyone else feel that way?). Any excess waste water makes it to our lawn and our house plants. I do keep a bucket of it around for rinsing off tools and such as well.

299FD5EF-3B24-44DF-A1D0-1B0FE392A9E2.jpeg 053E06EF-4D19-448E-9993-347C61F24DA0.jpeg
 

KenO

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What if I ran it to fill my pool? Does anyone thing that would be a problem? Water evaporation in my pool is a problem!
Here in AZ we have liquid rock for water. My TDS is 650, and I’m one of the lucky ones. Others in the state have higher TDS than me. I wouldn’t even consider putting the waste from my RO/DI into my pool. Just adding standard house water into the pool to make up for evaporation causes my TDS in the pool to skyrocket. I have to drain my pool (15,000 gallons) every 18 months and then refill. I was considering getting an RO system for my evaporation water, but when I looked at the waste water amount, it’s less water to just drain the pool and refill. There is a local company that can run a large RO system on the pool to get the TDS levels down. Cost is $650 dollars. It costs me $70 to drain and refill. As for my RO/DI waste water, I use it to water my trees.
 

NanJ

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We built a new house and are on a septic system. During the design phase we decided we were not comfortable putting salt water in the septic tank. (We have a 300g DT.) I could never get a definite answer as to the impact of salt water in a septic system.

So we had the builder install what we call an aquarium drain. It is just a pipe from the fish room that ends about 50 feet from the house in a bed of river rocks. Our RODI system also drains into that pipe. I know salt is supposed to kill plants but so far we see no impact to the field of fescue grass. The RODI waste water helps to dilute the salt so maybe that is why we don’t see an impact.

The birds use the river rock bed for drinking and bathing. I worry a bit about what it might do to them but I like to assume they wouldn’t drink it if it is too salty. Of course, salty water does not stop my dog from drinking ocean water at the beach!
 

4Bushpilot

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Thanks for the tips. Can't believe I'd not thought about recycling the RODI waste water.
 

Michael Picard

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It's about 275ppm, but I have an Ro1000(actually can produce around 1200gpd) that I added 20" sediment, and 20" 1micron carbon pre filters to, with the chlorashield block that comes with it and the two membranes at 70 ish psi it does well. Then I run dual DI canisters after. With that system it comes with a 2:1 and a 1:1 fitting as well.
I live in New Hampshire and I enjoy 2 ppm coming in during winter months and maybe 25ppm in mid to late summer. It is city treated water.
 

ca1ore

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I used to route my RODI waste water to the garden cistern in the non freezing months .... but we get enough rain such that the thing is almost always full anyhow. So its either the rain water that flows into the woods or the RODI waste water does, so I don’t bother anymore.
 

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