Setting up and optimizing RO unit - Questions

[Ruud]

Hello all, 

As some of you might know I am a Dutch expat residing in Spain, close to Barcelona. The water here is extremely hard and from the tap reads about 350ppm, which is not good for the fish I would like to keep. Right now I have a small 100L community tank and I have been managing with tap water combined with mineral water mixed in and it has been okay in general. Since I have moved to a bigger house with a garage this year, I have more space to play around with tanks and the other day I bought this RO unit. 

The unit is a 4 stage unit made by BCF (Best Choice for Fishes - a Spanish company) and bought in my aquarium shop in Barcelona. Its a 4 stage unit that in theory can produce up to 400L a day. However installation didn't go without its troubles. First of all the instruction guide ... well lets say it would have been equally helpful if they didn't include one at all so after a bit of trial and error I got it working, but still having some issues. And I could use some input from the knowledgeable folks on here... 

- My tap produces a pressure of 40psi or around 2.75Bar which produces somewhere between a fast drip to almost a small trickle of osmosis water, and a steady little trickle of waste water;

- Initial RO water came in at 150 PPM so not very efficient, now (after having it running for several hours) got it down to 55 which is still higher than I would expect it to be

 

Is my assumption correct that if I would up the pressure, by adding a pressure pump, to around 4 bar that would improve 1) the produced amount of liters RO and as well bring further down the ppm simply because it would work more efficiently? 

What do people use for storing RO water, i am interested to see smart solutions that will allow me to easily mix tap and RO water and pump it out. Right now with lack of anything else I am using 25L jerry cans to catch and store the RO water. Also wondering if it is advisable to have an air pump in the collected RO water to keep some flow and movement?

Thanks

Ruud 

[MickS77]

I have Aquatec booster pump on my setup, it runs around 90psi when in use. My storage and pumping setup can be seen in the attached comment

 

[Ruud]

Thanks @MickS77! Wow 90 psi, that's a lot of pressure! 

Is my assumption correct that PPM will drop if I up the pressure? I have ordered a booster pump that should arrive on Friday. 

[MickS77]

On 11/2/2022 at 10:14 AM, Ruud said:

Wow 90 psi, that's a lot of pressure! 

Thats what my Murlok fittings are rated for, I haven't had a leak or a problem at that pressure

On 11/2/2022 at 10:14 AM, Ruud said:

Is my assumption correct that PPM will drop if I up the pressure?

I believe so? As water is forced through the membrane at a higher pressure it is more effective, I'm not too versed in RODI science.

[Mmiller2001]

I believe increasing pressure should only improve efficiency, that said 40PSI is pretty low and most units are looking for 60 to 75PSI. I could definitely be wrong about this. I would look into a booster pump and adding DI resin. A second membrane would further increase efficiency and probably get you to 0TDS.

[Ruud]

Yup i ordered a booster pump, should arrive on Friday. My 4th stage, after the membrane, is actually resin. It will be interesting to see if the pump helps as well with getting the TDS go down to below 30 for instance besides increasing production. I know the 40psi is quite low, I tried several taps in the house but all are more or less the same so hoping with the pump I can at least up the pressure to at least 60psi.