RO units for filtration

johnlarson66

johnlarson66

These Pandas Rock
Sep 25, 2006
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Fayetteville, NC
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John Larson
I have searched and haven't been able to find an answer. Maybe this is just silly, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Could a person use a RO unit to filter the water and then eleminate the need to do water changes. Don't the RO units filter out TDS, so why not just use an RO unit. Of course one would still want to use some sort of canister and all of my tanks have HOB filters.

Has anyone done this? Would it work or am I missing something?

I am going to be traveling lots in the next year and my wife won't do water changes, was wondering if an RO unit filtering the water in the tank could eleminate weekly water changes, maybe just have monthly (or quarterly) water changes.
 
An RO works by forcing water through a semipermeable membrane. Since solids can't get through the membrane, there are much less dissolved solids on the clean water side. It sounds like it ought to work until you consider that to remove the impurities the RO actually throws away 5 times as much water as you get out of the clean water side. The dirty water part goes to the sewage system if you have an RO installed on your kitchen sink like I do, and the clean water goes to a storage tank for use.
If you put a pump on your tank to purify the water you could get back some clean water but the rest would basically give you an 80% or higher water change by rejecting the dirty side. Not a very practical way to save on water changes.
 
An RO unit cant be connected to the tank, its designed to work under mains water pressure to force water through membranes, then an additional DI resin unit if you have one attached...

I am afraid, its water changes 'r' us ;)
 
I guess I would just stock lightly so that the lapses in water changes wont affect the tank too fast.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

I am going to buy some more canister filters and set my wet/dry back up for my 200 gal. I think I will try to filter as much as possible, keep the stocking down and change before I leave and once I get back (which I do now).

I might do some sort of automatic water fill with overflows going outside to a flower bed. I have a well, but would want to treat the water some way before just putting it in my tank.

Maybe an RO unit hooked up to a water line and then that line going into the tank and an overflow going outside.
 
This is not a good plan. Fish cannot live in RO water; a hypotonic environment is just as deadly as a hypertonic one. Besides, running an RO filter on water as dirty as tank water will necessitate very frequent membrane changes; this would get expensive quickly.

If you have an RO unit running into your topoff reservoir, you will also need a source of non-RO water running into it.
 
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