What is the natural PPM/EC of your Tap?
Mine is insanely high with chlorine and calcium at .7 EC….
With that being said, I have been using Hydrologic Stealth 100 with KDF85 carbon filter in my RO unit with excellent results.
I actually don't know. Ppm, tds, or ec. The reason I don't know is because I had a gigantic 5 stage for my window cleaning business (water is a solvent, pure water is a much more aggressive solvent. We clean tall buildings from the ground instead of hanging off the top) any rodi unit should put all those numbers to 0 (except ph ;)) I used that unit all across New England with some of the hardest water possible, ppm, And tds was always 0. In theory, Ec should follow (it didn't measure ec, but if the other two are 0...)
Now that was a $5,000 unit, perhaps in this financial category it matters what your starting numbers are? (That's what I'm assuming given your question, I explained why I don't know, now I'm trying to figure out why are asking...damn I love ak47)
Ph is an exact 6.0
Based on past experience with the window cleaning units, I'm sure I could get away with just a di unit and be at 0. I would just be replacing di material more often. Adding the Ro is often simply to save $ on di maintenance. A large enough di should get you to 0 by itself. The window cleaning units do.
Well, why don't you get one of your oh so special window cleaning units then? The di tanks I'm talking about are huge, expensive, heavy, and overkill for what I need.
I don't have a tds, ec, or ppm meter. If it's important to know I can pick one up today. I know for hydro you need some of these, but I'm soon to be a res type system and was hoping to hold off on small meters and get one of those res units that measures everything...I think is made by
Bluelab.
So, let me know if you need those numbers and I'll get a meter. What I can tell you right now is that I'm on town water which has chlorine in it (the smell is noticeable just when the water is running) and I believe Flouride. No sulfur smell.
What I've been doing so far is, I have extra DWC buckets. I fill them all, and let them bubble overnight, then I add my nutrients and swap out the buckets. I sold my window cleaning company and my rodi unit went with it.
If I understand correctly, some of these smaller rodi units create waste water? If that is true I might just go di. One thing I am positive of, my window cleaning unit did not make waste water. It was kept in the back of my work vehicle and I just ran hoses to and from it. If it made waste water, my Toyota Matrix would have been flooded, but there was never a drop. No need to drain etc.
I will check out the ones mentioned, and if anyone has anything to add I'm all ears, and very appreciative.
