Should I get a Reverse Osmosis unit?

[Roberta]

AFid, I think that your water quality is quite adequate for the plants that you have now, the only group in your list that might be a bit picky (and therefore happier with RO) are the Phrags. But if they're growing now, clearly not necessary. (Paphs totally don't care... the Huntington Botanic Garden in southern California has a world-class Paph collection, and they have found that they actually do better with well water ranging from 200-800 ppm TDS, liquid rocks, than they do with RO!) Dens, it depends... most of the larger ones don't care, if you want to tackle Den. cuthbertsonii then you need RO. Many of the higher elevation Dens from Papua-New Guinea need RO If you want to get into the more sensitive little cloud-forest plants, RO would give you better results pretty much across the board. If you try Disa, no question, they need it. Most Catts don't care. But Sophronitis (even if they're now Cattleyas) do need good water. Also, for those baby orchids that you're cultivating, when they get deflasked they will probably do better with pure water. You don't need a very large unit, small plants don't use that much water.

[WaterWitchin]

Originally Posted by Marty

Ray, I've gone the generic way for years, wasted time and energy and ended up throwing out box of unused filters when I switched, as I no longer wanted to deal with generic units.

Last two I got were zero waste from costco, ended up breaking the housing of the filter on one and another unit that was injecting waste water into the hot water line, ended up rupturing something inside my hot water tank that resulted in no hot water, flooded laundry room and replacement of the entire HWT...just don't have good experience I guess and for that reason, I ended up sourcing and modifying one that I would want to use myself.

If they work for you great, but I just want to know instantly what quality water I'm producing, how much life I have on the filter and I want to be able to change the filter in 3 sec and never look at it again.

You should know that there are different consumers for every product and while some would do their own tire rotations and oil changes all day long, others don't even want to look at their wheels, just want to get to their destinations LOL - I'm in the 2nd group, but I've been in the first for years, so I understand both positions.

I understand high vs adequate quality very well. Before I retired, I dealt with folks who wanted a $10K water garden for $5K, and had to settle for what could be afforded. Had folks I quoted $50K, and they said "is that all?" and expanded. Having been in both positions, truly it's sometimes hard to comprehend. For all involved.

I remember doing my own oil changes, rotating tires, and having cheap@ss misting systems. And lots of $$ spent making water okay for numerous tanks over the years instead of an RO system of any type.

It IS all relative to one's situation. Now if I could just afford the greenhouse I've always wanted, and still won't happen. But hey, it's a start. I even upgraded to a MistKing system four or so years back. I'll give your product a great review if I get a raise!

---------- Post added at 07:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:49 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Afid

I just got a water test probe (not sure how reliable it is, it was a pretty cheap one) but it looks like my water is around 125-135 ppm currently, but I suspect it may go up as the amount of rain entering the system goes down.

Afid, it sounds to me like you're good to go. It's all relative, and dependent on what you grow (as Roberta says). My tap water here runs average around 350-480, and sometimes gets over 800 in a year's time. I grew for over 15 years very successfully before I got my first RO. I had a couple of special phrags given to me way back in the day, with strict instructions... must have "great" water. So I'd buy a case of distilled water for the few that required it and moved on.

I've had more learning curve adapting to using RO than I did my crappy tap water. My RO costs around $60 total, and I've had same one for a long time. But do you really need it at this point? Or just worried?

	Mistking Looking for a misting system? Look no further. Automated misting systems from MistKing are used by multitude of plant enthusiasts and are perfect for Orchids. Systems feature run dry pumps, ZipDrip valve, adjustable black nozzles, per second control! Automatically mist one growing shelf or a greenhouse full of Orchids. See MistKing testimonials

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Marty

Ray, I've gone the generic way for years, wasted time and energy and ended up throwing out box of unused filters when I switched, as I no longer wanted to deal with generic units.

Last two I got were zero waste from costco, ended up breaking the housing of the filter on one and another unit that was injecting waste water into the hot water line, ended up rupturing something inside my hot water tank that resulted in no hot water, flooded laundry room and replacement of the entire HWT...just don't have good experience I guess and for that reason, I ended up sourcing and modifying one that I would want to use myself.

If they work for you great, but I just want to know instantly what quality water I'm producing, how much life I have on the filter and I want to be able to change the filter in 3 sec and never look at it again.

You should know that there are different consumers for every product and while some would do their own tire rotations and oil changes all day long, others don't even want to look at their wheels, just want to get to their destinations LOL - I'm in the 2nd group, but I've been in the first for years, so I understand both positions.

HI, Marty. Nice to see you around here!

I fully understand "different strokes for different folks", but I simply don't understand your logic in this case.

If you have a unit that uses standard parts, they are available from any number of outlets, covering you if your original vendor goes out of business. The guy that I got my original one from died of cancer - I'm glad he steered me to standard components. Had he produced a system with proprietary filters, I'd have been totally out of luck getting replacements.

In 35 years of using RO systems I've not once experienced what you did with broken stuff and leaks.

Swap out the filters on a reasonable schedule, and you'll always have nice, pure water, whether you test or not.

If knowing the quality of the output water on a moment-to-moment basis is important to you, you can add an in-line monitor for under $50. I had a flow totalizer on mine that told me when I had reached the life of my filters - $25.

3 minutes to change a filter versus 5 or maybe 10? Why spend the extra money for that?

EDIT: I did a search after posting the above, and I think I see what's going on with this discussion. The particular system Marty pointed out is sold by mistking.com, so he apparently took my "I don't prefer those" statement as criticism of his products. It was not meant that way at all (I had no idea he even sold RO systems), but was merely my personal opinion.

Marty - sorry for stepping on your toes.

	Mistking Looking for a misting system? Look no further. Automated misting systems from MistKing are used by multitude of plant enthusiasts and are perfect for Orchids. Systems feature run dry pumps, ZipDrip valve, adjustable black nozzles, per second control! Automatically mist one growing shelf or a greenhouse full of Orchids. See MistKing testimonials

[Marty]

Originally Posted by Ray

EDIT: I did a search after posting the above, and I think I see what's going on with this discussion. The particular system Marty pointed out is sold by mistking.com, so he apparently took my "I don't prefer those" statement as criticism of his products. It was not meant that way at all (I had no idea he even sold RO systems), but was merely my personal opinion.

Marty - sorry for stepping on your toes.

Ray not a problem, I value your opinion and I fully understand your points. No offence taken. I'm just in a point in my life where I don't want to waste time nor energy on DIY, hacks, shortcuts, generics, etc, unless I really have to. I used to be all about that, then family, business, life happened and my time became limited and priorities very different, so I try to optimize things whenever I can. If there's a no name next to a high end tool, I don't think twice - I'll go for headache free and performance every time. As much as some may think that is wasteful and may be more costly, over time it saves time and frustration. I know if I read this 15 years ago, I'd think I'm an idiot LOL, but boy things changed in my life

	Mistking Looking for a misting system? Look no further. Automated misting systems from MistKing are used by multitude of plant enthusiasts and are perfect for Orchids. Systems feature run dry pumps, ZipDrip valve, adjustable black nozzles, per second control! Automatically mist one growing shelf or a greenhouse full of Orchids. See MistKing testimonials