RO filter on well water

So atm I don't have water to my building, I have been running a water hose to fill up my Rez. But I need to start using RO as I'm having some issues and was gonna see if that was the culprit. So there are a few issues, I don't have but 40psi on the gauge at the filter so it waste entirely too much water. I'm on a septic and not sure that putting that much waste water into it is a good idea. My tap comes out at 250ppm but I have no clue what's in that 250 ppm and have tried calling rating labs but they must be closed due to covid as they never answer the phone.

Next issue is that I'm going to have to store so much water in the house as I'm gonna need 100-200 gallons a day. And then somehow (pump I guess) move that water to the building.

At a 3:1 waste to clean water 200 gallons of clean water would be 600 gallons of waste water correct? I just don't know what to do with all that waste water.

I've never had to use a filter before as my tap at last spot was only 150 and it worked great. So any suggestions or tips on how other have set up their filters to work would be great.

You can put your ro system in your building. I personally use 55 gallon food grade barrels for water storage . You can just let the waste water run outside. Mine goes down a drain in the building, which goes to a field tile. For pumps I use 1/3 hp utility pumps (superior brand), use plenty of ball valves. I use one barrel for ro and it feeds two that hold nutrients.

I have a ro system in my flat. What I do is let the waste water run through the washing machine drainage. I find ro system terribly inefficient, the water comes ou very clean but there is to much waste. Does anybody here know any other filtering method(other than carbon filter) with less waste ? I have 180ppm tap water and if I could get it down to 80-100 ppm without the evils of ro then I would be very happy.

andymex said:

I have a ro system in my flat. What I do is let the waste water run through the washing machine drainage. I find ro system terribly inefficient, the water comes ou very clean but there is to much waste. Does anybody here know any other filtering method(other than carbon filter) with less waste ? I have 180ppm tap water and if I could get it down to 80-100 ppm without the evils of ro then I would be very happy.

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That!

Ideally you guys end up with a hybrid filter that gives you great quality water, with little to no need for waste.

Wish I knew the answer.

Really man, with 250 PPM water you MIGHT be able to get away with just adding epsom salt for magnesium and get away with the well water as is. Worth a try.

If you use a RO filter with the well water you may want a softner before the RO filter to help out and preserve the RO filter life. It gets expensive and wasteful if you have to do all that so it' is worth trying to fix the issues if possible.

What exactly are your plants doing? Pics?

If you must go with RO on a well, a few things to consider.

Water pressure. Low water pressure will cause more rejection (waste water) to get a given amount of clean water. A boster pump may be required to get you up to at least 60 PSI.

Permeate booster pump. When your filling a drum and have a float valve, as the valve closes the resistance to the clean water flow increases. This can greatly slow the last part of the fill and cause excessive rejection (waste water). The permeate booster pump will take the pressure of the brine (waste) to increase the pressure of the output water so it will help fight the float.

If might be possible to just use the prefilters from an RO setup and not the membrane. This would clean the water up somewhat but not all the way like a RO filter. Might be good enough and wouldn't have any waste.

Also, run a hardwater micro. That will help as it has less calcium.

I ran the numbers on the GH Micro versus the GH Hard Water Micro @ 5 mL per gallon You can see they really cut back the calcium.

Renfro said:

Really man, with 250 PPM water you MIGHT be able to get away with just adding epsom salt for magnesium and get away with the well water as is. Worth a try.

If you use a RO filter with the well water you may want a softner before the RO filter to help out and preserve the RO filter life. It gets expensive and wasteful if you have to do all that so it' is worth trying to fix the issues if possible.

What exactly are your plants doing? Pics?

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Lights just went off I'll get some pics tonight. Lots of plants doing lots of diff things. I have some that the serrated edges are turning up on, others that have crinkly wavey leaves,lots of purpling on fan leave stems, others have droopy leaves that are curling under at the ends. I have some yellowing on older growth. I am feeling very discouraged atm as I though 250 ppm would be good to go. I swear it looks like a cal mag issue but I'm afraid to add any more since I know that some of that 250ppm is cal or mag and afraid that I got too much of one or the other and locking one out.

I did repot yesterday after weeks of trying to get back to normal cause the new coco I tried seemed to contain too much dust and thought maybe that was the issue. It was bag coco so I didn't rinse but I noticed the run off looks like when I used to rinse the dust out of the block coco.

I am in Coco feeding AN sensi coco at 650-700 ppm plants are roughly 4 ft tall with multiple tops I want to flip asap and would have weeks ago but didn't want to start flower with an issue.

Have you already invested in a RO unit? If not, check these out. When the membrane on my RO wears out, I'm switching over to these.

Apalchen said:

Lights just went off I'll get some pics tonight. Lots of plants doing lots of diff things. I have some that the serrated edges are turning up on, others that have crinkly wavey leaves,lots of purpling on fan leave stems, others have droopy leaves that are curling under at the ends. I have some yellowing on older growth. I am feeling very discouraged atm as I though 250 ppm would be good to go. I swear it looks like a cal mag issue but I'm afraid to add any more since I know that some of that 250ppm is cal or mag and afraid that I got too much of one or the other and locking one out.

I did repot yesterday after weeks of trying to get back to normal cause the new coco I tried seemed to contain too much dust and thought maybe that was the issue. It was bag coco so I didn't rinse but I noticed the run off looks like when I used to rinse the dust out of the block coco.

I am in Coco feeding AN sensi coco at 650-700 ppm plants are roughly 4 ft tall with multiple tops I want to flip asap and would have weeks ago but didn't want to start flower with an issue.

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I would switch to GH Flora and use the hardwater micro. If you need more magnesium then add epsom salt.

Tangerine_ said:

Have you already invested in a RO unit? If not, check these out. When the membrane on my RO wears out, I'm switching over to these.

Amazon.com : Garden Hose Water Filter for RV and Outdoor use - Removes Chlorine, Chloramines, VOCs, Pesticides/Herbicides Boogie Blue Plus High Capacity Filter - The Organic Gardener's Choice : Garden & Outdoor

Amazon.com : Garden Hose Water Filter for RV and Outdoor use - Removes Chlorine, Chloramines, VOCs, Pesticides/Herbicides Boogie Blue Plus High Capacity Filter - The Organic Gardener's Choice : Garden & Outdoor

www.amazon.com

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I have already bought an RO but I don't care what I got to buy to make this work I have over 30k in this build out I have put everything I have into this it has to work. Out here now hooking the filter up in the building surprisingly had the same water pressure at the end of a 100 ft of hose that I had in the house, not sure how that works. I'm gonna have to buy a booster pump if want to run this thing. I also saw that hydrologic has a 1:1 water flow valve that is supposed to reduce waste water.
I'm
For now I will run the waste water into the yard but I'll have to figure out something else as it gets damn cold here in winter and don't want an ice rink in the yard or a breeding ground for mosquitos, although the ground is quite sandy maybe for summer I'll be alright it should soak in quick, emptying Rez now and gonna fill it and see how much waste it makes and how fast the ground soaks it up.

I filled a milk jug with waste and only got 32 ounces of good water not sure what ratio that is, but seems terrible to me.

I really wanna figure this out as I hate to switch nutes as I have been using the same thing for years but might have to if can't figure out the filter.

@Renfro so you think the excess calcium in the well water combined with the extra cal and mag in the coco specific nutes could be the issue? Does well water usually have more cal than mag?

@Tangerine_ you think those filters remove ppm of cal? If so that's easy as hell but I was under the impression they just took out chlorine.

Anybody know of a booster pump that is a decent price and that shuts off automatically when when the shut off valve closes and builds pressure?

Apalchen said:

Anybody know of a booster pump that is a decent price and that shuts off automatically when when the shut off valve closes and builds pressure?

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Maybe a well pressure tank?

A well pressure tank has a pressure switch on it that will shut off the pump. There is a check valve to prevent back flow.

Using a pressure tank with a check valve will help prevent the pump from short cycling.

Apalchen said:

@Renfro so you think the excess calcium in the well water combined with the extra cal and mag in the coco specific nutes could be the issue? Does well water usually have more cal than mag?

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Thus the use of different nutes. Hardwater micro and if needed epsom salt.

Apalchen said:

@Renfro so you think the excess calcium in the well water combined with the extra cal and mag in the coco specific nutes could be the issue? Does well water usually have more cal than mag?

@Tangerine_ you think those filters remove ppm of cal? If so that's easy as hell but I was under the impression they just took out chlorine.

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If I could check the ppms with mine I could give you an idea but the Boogie Blue I have now, is hooked up at my camp. My water source there is much cleaner (spring fed well) than my water source at home, which is city tap with a ppm of roughly 160.

I like the idea of the Boogie Blue because theres so much waste with the RO units and as @Renfro pointed out, you can adjust your nutes by switching the hardwater micro.