Collins water products on aquarist classifieds

[mike0605]

Following previous threads on water quality I am looking to purchase an ro system. I only have one 4 fout by 18inch by 18inch tank at the moment but plan to get at least another 2 to 3 and plan to hopefully expand on that eventually so I want an ro system that will be sufficient for my future needs.

I seen this by Collins water products on aquarist classifieds

seems very reasonable in price but unsure if it would be good? as I have no experience with ro systems would anyone recommend it?

100 us gal per day 3 stage R/O system £49.99

Thanks

 

[macvsog23]

To be honest all RO systems are the same apart from Kent who use a bit better quality parts
They get all by the parts from China and just stick them together.
One tip is use J Guest pipe fitting, just replace all the fitting with J Guest they seem to hold better. They can be found on E Bay
The price is about right £50 gets you a good system.
The GPD is dependant on the membrain.

One point is you will not get any were near 100 GPD out of it
reason it is rated in US gallons @75 degrees F @ 1.5 bar
You will get about 60GPD in the summer and a lot less in the winter
I have a 200 GPD system with a pump I get around 250 GPD from the RO unit in the summer a lot less during the winter

 

[mike0605]

thanks bob

 

[maxim68]

i had my hma from collins, seems ok

 

[mike0605]

TDS Meter

As I only have one tank at the moment but plan to turn this into 3 in the near future I have decided for the time being to purchase ro water from my relatively local tropical fish store £2.50 per 5 gallon.

My plan is to mix the ro with treated tap water to get a tds between 100 - 150.

A couple of questions for the ro guys and gals.

1) is a tds closer to 100 best or is literally anywhere between 100 - 150 fine? also when trying to unduce breeding do you alter the tds or is for example keeping it constantly at the same figure whatever that is better?

2) How do you use TDS meters. I am about to purchase a TDS Meter online one of those you dip in and test. My plan was to mix the ro and tap water stir it all up leave it for say half hour to settle and dip in and test. How do these meters actually work as I see several calibration sulutions online. This is the bit I dont understand what you should calibrate it to if it actually needs calibrating and then how exactly you read it.

3) Obviously I will need to do a few tests to esablished the desired split in ro/tap water however, if the desired mix was achieved by testing 25 litres ro with 25 litres tap would this be the same reading if I prepared 100 litres tap mixed with 100 litres ro or could it in fact still differ?

4) last one (promise) I note from previous threads that ro on its own is prone to nasties etc if this was mixed with tap would the water be able to be kapt for a week? Beacause the plan was to do a water change every two to 3 days and as I dont drive visit the aquarium store once weekly. And if this would cause problems would the problems be eqtinguished by running an internal filter in the holding water butt to add water movement? If this would still cause problems to the water I could always just do large water changes once a week but ideally wanted to do more regular water changes.

Thanks

 

[mike0605]

I have found one on ebay which says it is pre calibrated but does not say to what do you simply put it in the water and get the reading? I just don't want to buy something which turns out to be usedless and I am not familiar with these

Thanks

 

[mike0605]

Any info on these tds meters?

 

[maxim68]

if its a hand held one you turn it on dip it in the water read the reading and turn it off.very very simple to use

 

[Zebra Pleco]

I got a TDS meter a couple of weeks ago with calibrating solution off ebay. basically, you dip the TDS meter in the water, wait 1min or so and record the reading. The calibration solution works the same way as does PH digital meters and there calibration solutions.

You dip the TDS meter into the clibration solution that may have a constant reading of say 200, you then adjust your meter to read to 200. But I got mine brand new and was near enough spot on, so did not have to mess around with changing settings etc. Worked straight out iof the box £12 or so it cost.

 

[mike0605]

Thanks guys.

What is the benefit of setting it to a certain number say 200?

Yes it is a hand held one should be here any day now.

If you set it to a certain figure how do you then read it after putting it in say your tank water?

That is the only bit i dont quite get why you have to calibrate it and if you do at all?

I thought u would just take the reading of the water you want to test? but i have never used one.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
TDS meters are usually pretty good and don't tend to drift around too much, so a small amount of calibration fluid should last a long time, any of the 70, 84, 180 or 1411 microS mixes are the calibration solution you want. You can make your own solutions with KCl (potassium chloride - "salt free salt") if you have an accurate balance.

The meters are much simpler to operate than pH meters, which need calibrating every time you use them. You need to get a "low range" meter (ideally you want one that has the range 0 - 999 or 10 - 1999 microS, rather than one that does 0 - 10 milliS) although if you have the wide scale meter it will still give you a value, but not as accurately.

You can dip the meter in the tank as described, they are entirely safe to use. As long as your tap water is fairly hard you can just mix RO and tap/HMA water to give you the KH you want.

More details in Stuart's thread here: <http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8904>

150 - 250 microS should be about right, unless you want to breed extreme black water fish (where you need a lower TDS).

To go from TDS (in PPM) to conductivity in (MicroS /cm) you need to divide by 0.64. (100 microS is 64ppm TDS, 100ppm TDS is 164microS.) There is a useful converter here <http://www.lenntech.com/calculators/conductivity/tds-engels.htm>

cheers Darrel

 

[mike0605]

Thanks Darrel,

I finally got my TDS Meter.

My TDS Meter is 0 - 9990 ppm.

The TDS Meter is pre factory calibrated to 324 ppm but does advise it can be adjusted by screwdriver (not sure if this is good, bad or even matters?)

I tested my tapwater after putting it into a container and it read 118ppm

So by dividing this by 0.64 this gives 184.38 micros/cm conductivity if I have calculated this correctly?

Or do you then have to add the 184.38 to the original ppm of 118? Giving a total of 302.38?

Getting a bit confused now haha.

Is my tds 118ppm or 184 or both added together? Because if my tds from the tap is 118 isn't this really good for plecs? Or even 184 micros this seems to be good based on the bracket of 150 - 250

Bet I have calculated it wrong now hahaha

However, If this is correct would my requirement be only a hma filter? as even if I was to mix a minimal amount of ro with my tapwater wouldnt this take me a little too low on the scale?

Thanks ally your help is very much appreciated

Thanks again

 

[macvsog23]

I aim for a TDS of just under 200 say 175 to 180 I then add some RO Right to just bring it up to 200 check the Kh is some were around 4 to 6.
When I want to get a spawning I use a TDS of under 100 and dont heat the water. I also do around 40% water change

 

[maxim68]

I aim for a TDS of just under 200 say 175 to 180 I then add some RO Right to just bring it up to 200 check the Kh is some were around 4 to 6.
When I want to get a spawning I use a TDS of under 100 and dont heat the water. I also do around 40% water change

my tank tds are between 100 and 130 is this litlle bit low?, my tap water very soft tds 60-65 i just run through a 3 stage hma which give me a tds of 50-55 i dont store water i just top tanks up from the output of the hma. i have 1 almond leaf in every tank.replacing them every 4 or 5 weeks or when they disintigrate
is this ok?, could i improve ?

thanks

 

[mike0605]

From what I have picked up from this thread and from the experienced guys is that as long as your kh is between 4 and 6 you should be okay with that tds I think it is just if you are wanting to breed plecs that accuracy is the key otherwise stability is the most important thing.

 

[mike0605]

So is the tds of my tapwater the 118 off the meter? and by dividing this by 0.64 to get conductivity is conductivity important and are my readings good or bad?

Also is my water too soft to be able to buffer ro with tap/hma filtered water?

Thanks

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

My TDS Meter is 0 - 9990 ppm.
The TDS Meter is pre factory calibrated to 324 ppm but does advise it can be adjusted by screwdriver (not sure if this is good, bad or even matters?)

Yes, this just means it is a wide scale meter it still works, but won't be very accurate. You need to buy a 324ppm TDS calibration fluid: <http://www.greenair.com/old/techtips.htm> presumably Collins sell this? To calibrate the machine you set the temperature to the temperature of the calibration solution and dip the meter in, if the value it reads isn't 324, you adjust the little grub adjustment screw (with a screwdriver) up or down until you get to 324 ppm.

I tested my tapwater after putting it into a container and it read 118ppm. So by dividing this by 0.64 this gives 184.38 micros/cm conductivity if I have calculated this correctly?

Yes, that is correct 118 ppm TDS is 184 microS, they are just different scales for electrical conductivity (like miles and kilometres both measure distances).

Also is my water too soft to be able to buffer ro with tap/hma filtered water?

Because your water is quite soft you will need to buffer your KH up a bit, all the details of how to do this are in Stuart's thread.

cheers Darrel

 

[mike0605]

Firstly just want to thank everyone for their help on this thread esp Darrel and Bob great advice and I am getting there slowly ha just bear with me.

Just read Stuarts thread againg great advice guys.

Basically as your buffer/reservoir to keep the conditions/kh stable can coral sand be used as substrate and in an internal filter, or do most plecs dislike this as substrate? Only asking as I used to use this sand in my african cichlid tanks.

Also do you need to buffer the KH of the water before it is added to the aquarium? or do you just allow the sand for example in the aquarium to stabilise the kh of the hma/ro mixed water?

I would guess that you would need to stabilise the kh of the ro/hma mixed water prior to adding this to the aquarium but could be completely wrong.

I am guessing if this is the case it could be done with coral sand in an internal filter inside the water holding drum?

Thanks

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Mike you can use coral sand, but not as the substrate. You want to add a small amount of KH, a coral sand substrate will carry on adding KH until the water is very hard. This is why Bob recommended "RO right", it takes all the guess work out of raising the KH.

I think of it like this, your water is a cup of "black coffee", you want to add enough "milk" (KH) to make it a "white coffee", but not enough to make it a "really milky coffee". The "RO right" is like using a 5ml measuring spoon, you get the same amount of milk every time. Using coral sand or oyster shell is more like closing your eyes and sloshing the milk in straight out of the milk carton. You need to find what size of carton, and how long a slosh, gives you perfect coffee. Bob is lucky because in this analogy his tap water (high KH) is "milk", so he can just add in enough tap water for perfect "coffee" every time.

Also do you need to buffer the KH of the water before it is added to the aquarium? or do you just allow the sand for example in the aquarium to stabilise the kh of the hma/ro mixed water? I would guess that you would need to stabilise the kh of the ro/hma mixed water prior to adding this to the aquarium but could be completely wrong.

Best to do it in the holding drum, the coral sand can just be in a net bag in the water, you'll need to play around with the size of the bag until you find the size that gives you the TDS value you want. Then you can use the TDS meter to make sure the water is about the same in the tank.

cheers Darrel

 

[macvsog23]

Oh dear me all this guess work
I am so lucky I am a lazy sod as Mr Rotten said
I use a form of RO right so no guessing no risks and a few bob extra spent.
Thank God the wifes new job at Gestapo HQ is bring in the dosh.