What is a good RODI System for Waterbox Marine X 60.2

albertski · Jul 26, 2021

I just purchased the Waterbox Marine X 60.2 tank (36-gallon tank but total volume 54.5 gallons) and want to purchase a RODI unit for my house. I don't know anything about RODI units. Would AQUATICLIFE RO Buddie 3-Stage Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration System, RO Unit 100 GPD one work for me? Not sure if there are ones that waste less water because the water in my town is very expensive.

T-J · Jul 26, 2021

IMO I would stay away from that system. I had one. Expensive to replace cartridges. I'm currently using a BRS 5 stage RO/DI system and love it. I installed my own triple TDS meter, so I can monitor the water at the tap, after the RO membrane and after the DI resin.
Mine has run 6 months and I just changed my sediment and carbon filters. I've done two DI resin changes with the BRS bulk DI resin. Super easy and saves money.
If you want to save water, you can add a second membrane from what I understand. Some people collect their waste water or have it drain off into their gardens, washing machine, rain barrel, etc.

cnote$$$ · Jul 27, 2021

The unit you need or more so dependant on your source water. Have you asked or pulled a city water report?

albertski · Jul 28, 2021

cnote$$$ said:
The unit you need or more so dependant on your source water. Have you asked or pulled a city water report?

I just took a look at the Homer Glen Water report but not sure what to look for.

Jweaver821 · Jul 31, 2021

albertski said:
I just took a look at the Homer Glen Water report but not sure what to look for.

It looks like your water is treated with chlorine so that is something to look at first. I think chlorine is easier to get out than chlorimine. The more stages you get can either make your water production fast or more redundant and pure. There are four basic stages to RODI which can each be expanded on for multiple reasons.

The first stage is the sediment filter. This is there to remove large particles. It’s basically a poly filter or like a filter sock. It starts out white and will turn yellow and then brown. I’ve found this to be the filter that needs to be replaced the most often on my system.
The second stage is carbon filtering. You can run a single carbon block for chlorine and if you are making small batches of water. However if your water has chlorimine then there are special filter blocks like “chlorimine blaster” that require an added filter. This stage can greatly improve the life of your ro membrane or decrease it if it’s not strong enough.

The third stage is the RO membrane. This is in my opinion what determines the most in the system. There are different rejection rates that cause more or less efficiency. The higher the GPD rating the more contamination that is allowed to pass through. The membrane does the most work in lowering TDS. On my system the tds is around 200 entering the membranes and 4 leaving. You can “stack” membranes to increase production. You can take the waste from the first membrane and run through a second membrane and then combine the filtered water lines to double production. It is important to have good pre filtering to remove chlorine and chlorimine before entering the membranes or they will be exhausted quickly.

The fourth stage is the DI filter. This will finish off the filtration and bring you to zero tds. This filter stage will be exhausted nearly immediately if any of your earlier filter stages started to allow too many particles by. It’s a near fail proof practice to stack two of these filters with color changing resin and as soon as the first one is depleted just swap them and replace the depleted one. With color changing resin this stage is the most straightforward on when it needs to be replaced.

I recommend buying a solid four stage to start out with like the BRS advanced. For a 30 gallon tank a 75GPD should be plenty. Then expand at a later time. I found it cheapest to just purchase a second four stage system and combine them over buying the add ons one piece at a time.

dedragon · Jul 31, 2021

dang didnt see this, marine depot just did their liquidation with like $45 rodi units

Pistondog · Jul 31, 2021

T-J said:
IMO I would stay away from that system. I had one. Expensive to replace cartridges. I'm currently using a BRS 5 stage RO/DI system and love it. I installed my own triple TDS meter, so I can monitor the water at the tap, after the RO membrane and after the DI resin.
Mine has run 6 months and I just changed my sediment and carbon filters. I've done two DI resin changes with the BRS bulk DI resin. Super easy and saves money.
If you want to save water, you can add a second membrane from what I understand. Some people collect their waste water or have it drain off into their gardens, washing machine, rain barrel, etc.

Add the 2nd membrane, especially if you have good water pressure.
Doubled the rodi with the same waste water volume.