fenwaypark
Member
I wanna make sure my lfs isn't taking advantage of my newbie status. How much should i expect 35 gallons of RO/DI water to cost?
Price of RO/DI water?
- Thread starter fenwaypark
- Start date
merredeth
Active Member
I'm adding my own salt and buying RO water from the local WalMart.
Cost per gallon is only 35¢ for the water, if I buy the salt.
Since I buy salt when it is on sale, by the time I'm done mixing it probably costs .38¢ to .40¢ if I divide my purchase of salt by gallons and factor in my cost of water.
A much less expensive way to go when one is doing 40 - 50 gallon water changes per week if I add up all my tanks.
Denise M.
Cost per gallon is only 35¢ for the water, if I buy the salt.
Since I buy salt when it is on sale, by the time I'm done mixing it probably costs .38¢ to .40¢ if I divide my purchase of salt by gallons and factor in my cost of water.
A much less expensive way to go when one is doing 40 - 50 gallon water changes per week if I add up all my tanks.
Denise M.
fenwaypark
Member
I have a pretty amazing marine store local to me. Is there a trade off in quality from the time, effort and mess from mixing your own water as opposed to buying premixed. I dont have a huge tank and would rather just keep some premixed on hand and buy it as I need it. Seems reasonable if the premixed water is always from the same source that it would remain consistent. I think it would be a heck of alot easier to buy it from someone than to mix if its only 20 to 30 cents more expensive per gallon. Whats the dilly?
merredeth
Active Member
Originally Posted by FenwayPark
I have a pretty amazing marine store local to me. Is there a trade off in quality from the time, effort and mess from mixing your own water as opposed to buying premixed. I dont have a huge tank and would rather just keep some premixed on hand and buy it as I need it. Seems reasonable if the premixed water is always from the same source that it would remain consistent. I think it would be a heck of alot easier to buy it from someone than to mix if its only 20 to 30 cents more expensive per gallon. Whats the dilly?
Water changes weekly amounting to 40 or 50 gallons does make for an expense if I purchased pre-mixed. If I wanted to cut expenses further I could install an RO/DI unit. However, plumbers around here are backlogged due to all the new construction. Since my friend is a plumber I'm waiting for him to get some time - and I'll probably wait as long as his wife has waited for new faucets in her house - something like 2 years now.
Believe it or not I don't mind mixing the saltwater up myself. It only takes me a few minutes and having it handy in 50 gallon garbage cans makes it readily available if there is some kind of emergency - and it is inevitable that it will happen to everyone at some time or another.
Denise M.
I have a pretty amazing marine store local to me. Is there a trade off in quality from the time, effort and mess from mixing your own water as opposed to buying premixed. I dont have a huge tank and would rather just keep some premixed on hand and buy it as I need it. Seems reasonable if the premixed water is always from the same source that it would remain consistent. I think it would be a heck of alot easier to buy it from someone than to mix if its only 20 to 30 cents more expensive per gallon. Whats the dilly?
Water changes weekly amounting to 40 or 50 gallons does make for an expense if I purchased pre-mixed. If I wanted to cut expenses further I could install an RO/DI unit. However, plumbers around here are backlogged due to all the new construction. Since my friend is a plumber I'm waiting for him to get some time - and I'll probably wait as long as his wife has waited for new faucets in her house - something like 2 years now.
Believe it or not I don't mind mixing the saltwater up myself. It only takes me a few minutes and having it handy in 50 gallon garbage cans makes it readily available if there is some kind of emergency - and it is inevitable that it will happen to everyone at some time or another.
Denise M.
ravennreef
Member
just go out and buy a RO/DI. It will save you money in the long run. You can get them for cheap off any auction site... airwaterice.com has some really good machines as well. I bought one and it was a great investment and should have done it sooner.
The shop I work at charges .50 for RODI and $1 for premade salt. You can find it cheaper if you look though.
If you buy RO/DI water from one of those machines make sure you use a TDS(total disolved solid) meter and see what it is at. One machine I used had a 42ppm TDS rate which is way to high for reef tanks. I had a algea bloom and could not figure it out until I checked. Anything less then 5ppm should be fine but I try to get it to 0ppm.
:happyfish
The shop I work at charges .50 for RODI and $1 for premade salt. You can find it cheaper if you look though.
If you buy RO/DI water from one of those machines make sure you use a TDS(total disolved solid) meter and see what it is at. One machine I used had a 42ppm TDS rate which is way to high for reef tanks. I had a algea bloom and could not figure it out until I checked. Anything less then 5ppm should be fine but I try to get it to 0ppm.
:happyfish
teviesfish
Member
i have a water service come to my home and set it up. I rent the whole kit and cabodal for 10.00 per month. This gives me ro/di in my entire home. We love it. And they show us a schedual for filter changes and we see them do it so we know they are getting changed. So much easeir in the long run. Our lfs is an hour away. We get our own salt and mix it ourselves. Good luck
fenwaypark
Member
My weekly water changes would be at most 5 gallons, its only a 35G corner. I think having a RO/DI unit at this point would be a little overdoing it. This is my first tank and I dont wanna dive into the deep end if Im not sure that I know how to swim.
scsinet
Active Member
I'm always going to push people towards the "get your own RODI end," but you should be sure that you are going to stick wtih the hobby before you buy some luxury equipment.
Your water changes may amount to five gallons, but you also need top off water, and water on hand for rinsing stuff, extra seawater for acclimating new arrivals, or filling up a quarantine/hospital tank (which you should get if you don't already have) in an emergency.
If I were you, I'd buy RODI freshwater and mix it yourself. That way you can keep it at home in RODI form, and mix saltwater as needed, so you don't have to maintain supplies of both freshwater (for top offs, rinsing, freshwater dips, etc) and seawater (water changes, acclimating, quarantine/hostpital).
What I'd do is get yourself a rubbermaid 32 gallon trash barrel (GET A NEW ONE, don't reuse an old one), and a basic powerhead (about 15 bucks online). When you buy RODI water, buy double what you need until you get a full 32 gallons of "reserve water" saved up. That way you always have enough on hand for emergencies. When you draw from the barrel, just make it a point to visit the LFS within a few days to purchase makeup water. Keep the powerhead running in the barrel 24x7 to keep the water fresh and mixed.
Mixing seawater is very easy once you get the hang of it. Here's the best piece of advice I can give you: The #1 thing to know is to portion salt by weight, not by measure. I attached a picture of my salt and mixing stuff. I use a kitchen scale, set to zero with the measuring cup on it. In the bucket of salt is a cheap scoop. I always mix water in 6 gallon buckets, so all I do is fill a bucket, scoop salt into the glass measuring cup until the scale reads 1lb, 8oz (for 1.025), and mix the salt into the water. It's very important to re-seal the salt container and not introduce moisture into it or the salt clumps up and gets hard to measure.
You probably won't buy a 200 gallon bucket like the one pictured, so if you get bags, get yourself a sealable container to keep it in. Also, the weights I listed are for my situation, you'll have to experiment to find out exacly how much salt to measure every time, by using a hydrometer or refractometer to get it exactly right.
Once the salt is mixed into the water, throw another powerhead in there and run it overnight to get it all mixed up real nice, and you're golden.
Once you've got the method down, it's pretty much foolproof.
Your water changes may amount to five gallons, but you also need top off water, and water on hand for rinsing stuff, extra seawater for acclimating new arrivals, or filling up a quarantine/hospital tank (which you should get if you don't already have) in an emergency.
If I were you, I'd buy RODI freshwater and mix it yourself. That way you can keep it at home in RODI form, and mix saltwater as needed, so you don't have to maintain supplies of both freshwater (for top offs, rinsing, freshwater dips, etc) and seawater (water changes, acclimating, quarantine/hostpital).
What I'd do is get yourself a rubbermaid 32 gallon trash barrel (GET A NEW ONE, don't reuse an old one), and a basic powerhead (about 15 bucks online). When you buy RODI water, buy double what you need until you get a full 32 gallons of "reserve water" saved up. That way you always have enough on hand for emergencies. When you draw from the barrel, just make it a point to visit the LFS within a few days to purchase makeup water. Keep the powerhead running in the barrel 24x7 to keep the water fresh and mixed.
Mixing seawater is very easy once you get the hang of it. Here's the best piece of advice I can give you: The #1 thing to know is to portion salt by weight, not by measure. I attached a picture of my salt and mixing stuff. I use a kitchen scale, set to zero with the measuring cup on it. In the bucket of salt is a cheap scoop. I always mix water in 6 gallon buckets, so all I do is fill a bucket, scoop salt into the glass measuring cup until the scale reads 1lb, 8oz (for 1.025), and mix the salt into the water. It's very important to re-seal the salt container and not introduce moisture into it or the salt clumps up and gets hard to measure.
You probably won't buy a 200 gallon bucket like the one pictured, so if you get bags, get yourself a sealable container to keep it in. Also, the weights I listed are for my situation, you'll have to experiment to find out exacly how much salt to measure every time, by using a hydrometer or refractometer to get it exactly right.
Once the salt is mixed into the water, throw another powerhead in there and run it overnight to get it all mixed up real nice, and you're golden.
Once you've got the method down, it's pretty much foolproof.
mandarin w
Member
Price of messed up back from hauling countless jugs of water from car into house.
$2K a year to ciroprator.
Price of shampooing carpet in car, do to the sudden stop. Because that Jerk in front of you, the kid running into the street. The light turning red (and the cop right behing you).
$60.
The loss value of your car come trade in time, do to saltwater damage
$2000.
All the RO you buy at the LFS or Wal-Mart, you think is good, that is as bad, if not worse than what comes out of your tap. You would be surprise how many LFS do not change their ro filters on a regular basic. Our local reef club went out a little over a year ago. and did an experiment. We spent the month going to different LFS and buying water. A lot of us started having issues with our tanks that did not make sense. During that month period. There were about 20 of us that started testing the water with TDS meter. Out of 7 stores in the surrounding area. only one had water that read under 5. All the rest read above 40. and two - the water was higher than my tap water. They apperently didn't change their filtler out for over two years. And Wal-mart and the local grociery stores did not fair much better. Also the water in those machines is RO, not RO/DI which is what you really want anyway. At a $1.00 plus a gal x 5 gals a week (min) x 52 weeks a year. You do the math.
Cost of RO/DI unit $200. See them for alot less on the aution sites.
Cost of getting that emergency water at 11:30 pm, when everything else is closed.
NOW THAT IS PRICELESS
$2K a year to ciroprator.
Price of shampooing carpet in car, do to the sudden stop. Because that Jerk in front of you, the kid running into the street. The light turning red (and the cop right behing you).
$60.
The loss value of your car come trade in time, do to saltwater damage
$2000.
All the RO you buy at the LFS or Wal-Mart, you think is good, that is as bad, if not worse than what comes out of your tap. You would be surprise how many LFS do not change their ro filters on a regular basic. Our local reef club went out a little over a year ago. and did an experiment. We spent the month going to different LFS and buying water. A lot of us started having issues with our tanks that did not make sense. During that month period. There were about 20 of us that started testing the water with TDS meter. Out of 7 stores in the surrounding area. only one had water that read under 5. All the rest read above 40. and two - the water was higher than my tap water. They apperently didn't change their filtler out for over two years. And Wal-mart and the local grociery stores did not fair much better. Also the water in those machines is RO, not RO/DI which is what you really want anyway. At a $1.00 plus a gal x 5 gals a week (min) x 52 weeks a year. You do the math.
Cost of RO/DI unit $200. See them for alot less on the aution sites.
Cost of getting that emergency water at 11:30 pm, when everything else is closed.
NOW THAT IS PRICELESS
pythonxxyy
New Member
Originally Posted by FenwayPark
I wanna make sure my lfs isn't taking advantage of my newbie status. How much should i expect 35 gallons of RO/DI water to cost?
GO WHITE SOX! Anyways, the price of RO even if it's Deionized, should cost you no more than about $.50/gal. Mixed can cost as much as $1.00/gal
I wanna make sure my lfs isn't taking advantage of my newbie status. How much should i expect 35 gallons of RO/DI water to cost?
GO WHITE SOX! Anyways, the price of RO even if it's Deionized, should cost you no more than about $.50/gal. Mixed can cost as much as $1.00/gal
fenwaypark
Member
Good thread! Thanks SCSInet for the great advice/info. I think I have a good idea of what Im looking at. I planned on mixing my own eventually but like I said I wanna make sure im strapped in before the coaster takes off, or I put enough miracle whip on my bread before I put the ham and cheese on or theres enough gas in the tank before i drive to Fiji or that the seats down before i sit on the toilet. You know what I'm saying. Im getting there slowly but surely!!
merredeth
Active Member
Originally Posted by mandarin w
Price of messed up back from hauling countless jugs of water from car into house.
$2K a year to ciroprator.
Price of shampooing carpet in car, do to the sudden stop. Because that Jerk in front of you, the kid running into the street. The light turning red (and the cop right behing you).
$60.
The loss value of your car come trade in time, do to saltwater damage
$2000.
All the RO you buy at the LFS or Wal-Mart, you think is good, that is as bad, if not worse than what comes out of your tap. You would be surprise how many LFS do not change their ro filters on a regular basic. Our local reef club went out a little over a year ago. and did an experiment. We spent the month going to different LFS and buying water. A lot of us started having issues with our tanks that did not make sense. During that month period. There were about 20 of us that started testing the water with TDS meter. Out of 7 stores in the surrounding area. only one had water that read under 5. All the rest read above 40. and two - the water was higher than my tap water. They apperently didn't change their filtler out for over two years. And Wal-mart and the local grociery stores did not fair much better. Also the water in those machines is RO, not RO/DI which is what you really want anyway. At a $1.00 plus a gal x 5 gals a week (min) x 52 weeks a year. You do the math.
Cost of RO/DI unit $200. See them for alot less on the aution sites.
Cost of getting that emergency water at 11:30 pm, when everything else is closed.
NOW THAT IS PRICELESS
Actually, Culligans is the company that services the water stations here in my area. They even have when everything was serviced with the date and come monthly to do the servicing.
A call to the Culligans franchise owner that services the machines will tell you what they do. If you think the levels are too high on the TDS meter, call them. They will replace the water for you (and even deliver it if they are concerned about customer service) if you tell them why you buy it.
Denise M.
Price of messed up back from hauling countless jugs of water from car into house.
$2K a year to ciroprator.
Price of shampooing carpet in car, do to the sudden stop. Because that Jerk in front of you, the kid running into the street. The light turning red (and the cop right behing you).
$60.
The loss value of your car come trade in time, do to saltwater damage
$2000.
All the RO you buy at the LFS or Wal-Mart, you think is good, that is as bad, if not worse than what comes out of your tap. You would be surprise how many LFS do not change their ro filters on a regular basic. Our local reef club went out a little over a year ago. and did an experiment. We spent the month going to different LFS and buying water. A lot of us started having issues with our tanks that did not make sense. During that month period. There were about 20 of us that started testing the water with TDS meter. Out of 7 stores in the surrounding area. only one had water that read under 5. All the rest read above 40. and two - the water was higher than my tap water. They apperently didn't change their filtler out for over two years. And Wal-mart and the local grociery stores did not fair much better. Also the water in those machines is RO, not RO/DI which is what you really want anyway. At a $1.00 plus a gal x 5 gals a week (min) x 52 weeks a year. You do the math.
Cost of RO/DI unit $200. See them for alot less on the aution sites.
Cost of getting that emergency water at 11:30 pm, when everything else is closed.
NOW THAT IS PRICELESS
Actually, Culligans is the company that services the water stations here in my area. They even have when everything was serviced with the date and come monthly to do the servicing.
A call to the Culligans franchise owner that services the machines will tell you what they do. If you think the levels are too high on the TDS meter, call them. They will replace the water for you (and even deliver it if they are concerned about customer service) if you tell them why you buy it.
Denise M.
jesikarose
Member
Bought a ro/di machince for $100 three stage filtering system and a 4 gallon tank to hold back water...
Helps me drinking good water
Helps my Pets dogs and cats
keeps algea sorta undercontrol
There is alot of people such as one of my lfs... that told me buying this was stupid... but belive me it is worth it and you dont have to call a plumber to install it... my and my hubby put it in, in about 2 hours and not had a problem since.
LFS water in Western KY .75 a gallon and she does not offer salt premix water I went there to get 50 gallon when i first set up my tank and she gae it to me for .50
But I had to buy something big enough to hold that much water and somthing small enough to fit into a jeep... Got to lfs the container had wheels..(which i thought would be helpful) Had lfs laugh at me when the first gallon went straight to the holes and out to the grass... had to go back and buy strong enough trashbags to hold the water $9.00 for bags... finallay got everything home... and ro/di machine was waiting at the door
Helps me drinking good water
Helps my Pets dogs and cats
keeps algea sorta undercontrol
There is alot of people such as one of my lfs... that told me buying this was stupid... but belive me it is worth it and you dont have to call a plumber to install it... my and my hubby put it in, in about 2 hours and not had a problem since.
LFS water in Western KY .75 a gallon and she does not offer salt premix water I went there to get 50 gallon when i first set up my tank and she gae it to me for .50
But I had to buy something big enough to hold that much water and somthing small enough to fit into a jeep... Got to lfs the container had wheels..(which i thought would be helpful) Had lfs laugh at me when the first gallon went straight to the holes and out to the grass... had to go back and buy strong enough trashbags to hold the water $9.00 for bags... finallay got everything home... and ro/di machine was waiting at the door