Bigsalmonfish
Senior Member
Does anyone have advice on how to extend the life of your watermaker prefilters in plankton/algae rich water? My 20 micron plugs after several hours of running.
I sourced a 7x35 tank and a manual valve from here.
https://aquatroltech.com/
Using Twisted's suggestion, instead of sand I used Micro Z.
Last summer was my first year and it worked great.
The media filter is plumbed ahead of the 20 & 5. We were on the boat for 5 months last year and only had to rinse the 20 mic twice, never did rinse the 5. I would backwash the media filter for 15 minutes about every 10 hrs of run timeDid you put this in lieu of the 20 and 5 mic filters or did you put forward of them?
I struggled with this for years, and was forming the opinion that a water maker was more trouble than it's worth. Then I installed a media filter, and made nearly all my water for the next couple of years. To me, there is no substitute if you are in biologically rich waters.
Let me also venture a guess that you have a Spectra watermaker? By all indications, they plug up much faster and easier than other water makers.
I have a Aquamarine About 40gph so I am pumping lots of water through the filters. A media filter seems like the solution to this. Just trying to find one that makes sense
Well, that somewhat blows my theory that Spectra water makers are more susceptible to this. They generally have much lower pressure boost pumps (~5-10psi) vs typical AC powered water makers with closer to 30 psi.
Regardless, in my experience a media filter is the ticket, at least for the PNW and the NE US. And it's not because of running in dirty water because I only make water out in open seas. It's all about the microbial life in the water. Basically little sea beasties.
This is patently untrue.Your RO membranes are not capable of efficiently removing coliforms or other bacteria. .
The filters are just to protect the high pressure pump and the membrane and have nothing to do with water quality.I had the same problem. I got rid of the filter. I never drink the water from my tanks, just use it for washing and sometimes boiling corn.
Coffee, drinking, iced tea, tooth brushing and pill swallowing uses bottled water.
pete
Every watermaker professional I know, disagrees with your statement if the membrane is fully intact. Most say an UV filter is a waste"patently untrue"
If you read my post it says:
"Your RO membranes are not capable of efficiently removing coliforms or other bacteria."
While a totally integral RO membrane will remove much in the way of bacterial contamination, cysts, etc and can reduce viral load it can not be trusted to remove 100% of bacteria (coliforms) and is not very efficient with viruses. Pore size specifications for RO membranes look extremely small so it may appear that it should do the job. The reality is that RO membranes are not intended for this function, and are not integral to the extent that they can assured of performing this function. And further, stresses on the membrane during its useful life span increase the likelihood of small particles passing through, as is demonstrated by water TDS increasing over time. In any industrial seawater desal plant, water would be sterilized after RO. Can you get away with it? Probably, depending on the source of the water you are putting through the RO. Hence back to not trying to make drinking water from dirty water - where this discussion bega, I believe. Check out the reference below:
https://www.freshwatersystems.com/blogs/blog/how-to-remove-bacteria-from-drinking-water.
p.s. I did once run a large water purification company