AQUATICLIFE RO Buddie: 3-Stage Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration System for Pure, Clean Water

Amazon CustomerAmazon Customer: Received this Aug 23/23 and I’ve just now got around to installing and using—in less than 50g the filter has already changed colour. Going to get another filter and see how long it lasts.. so far I don’t have high hopes.

Canada on Oct 08, 2023

Michael: I quote from the manual that came with the kit:
"FAILURE TO USE A CHLORAMINE FILTER WILL QUICKLY DESTROY YOUR RO MEMBRANE & PROVIDE POOR FILTERED WATER QUALITY"
It would have been nice to know this beforehand. My tap water has chloramines (I live in Oklahoma), as do MOST municipal water systems. So now I have to buy their $50 prefilter, and wait for it to get here before I can even test the RO filter.

UPDATE: Got the Carbon Plus filter installed. I am very happy with this rig.
TDS tapwater: 160
TDS waste stream: 250
TDS filtered stream: 6
Best of all, I'm getting a gallon of filtered water every 10 minutes. I know this can't last, output will be reduced as the filters plug up, but for now this is great.
Minus 1 star for not having a chloramine warning in the ad.

United States on Oct 06, 2023

Milton F.: It's an absolute must to have RODI if you are in any way serious about a healthy aquarium. Using tap water, even with additives, is in most cases a recipe for failure in many cases. The cost is so low, why wouldn't you want one to protect the investment in fish, plants, or coral?
This unit is super easy to set up and comes with everything you need unless maybe you want to hard plumb it in.
Only downside is there is about a 3 or 4:1 waste to purified water which they all have to a less or more extent. Waste can be used for plants or other non ingested use. Again, one of the best spends I've done for my reef tank.

Canada on Oct 05, 2023

Kate: Like the title says, was super hesitant to get this at first because of the mixed reviews! But I’ve had it a few months and it’s working really well! I use it to make water for my fish tanks. I have a 20 gallon and a 5 gallon. No leaks, TDS tests at 0-1 after it’s gone completely through. I put the waste water right back in the sink with the long airline that is provided.

United States on Sep 26, 2023

Cr: After testing the water quality after over a year, it still does a wonderful job of removing the junk. The old one was still working, only problem was a hole had developed in the hose and caused it to leak. Since you can’t replace just the hose we had to replace. The one we replaced was used over a year, I’m expecting to get well over that with this one if we can manage not to pierce the hose again.

One less star for the inability of replacing the hose. The lock in place feature is great when keeping things in place, but really sucks when you need to replace. Outside of that one downside, this does what it’s supposed to. I will purchase again when the time comes.

United States on Sep 23, 2023

Samuel Rippe: Be warned it works amazingly, unless you are a dodo like me.
When I bought this I hooked this up under the sink and got amazingly perfect water for my reef tank. I didn't know what I had been missing out on, all my corals started doing better within days of using the water.
THEN BOOM water was gushing everywhere from under my sink and the color changing Deionization beads where everywhere!
Later I read the instructions and found out that this product is not ment to be used under pressure.
This is a great option IF you intend to take this out of storage and hook it up when you want water, but if you want something that you can just turn on look for one intended to be installed permanently to the house.

United States on Sep 19, 2023

John HawkinsJohn Hawkins: If you buy this RO system I recommend you go to the Aqualife website and watch the YouTube video on setting it up. But basically run it for 5 minutes without the RO membrane filter to clear the carbon filter then run it for 30 minutes with the RO membrane installed before collecting water.

I've only used it twice so far but after the intial setup it is super easy to collect RO water. The speed is water dependent but I collected 10 gallons in a little over 100 minutes. I had my water tested a couple years ago professionally by Ward Labs and got another test just to baseline the filtered water out of the RO filter. The attached picture is of my two different water tests. My water while high in bicarbonate wasn't exactly horrible to begin with but I'm happy with the system's ability to get me down to 16 TDS.

I brew beer at home and while I had my water tested I had some issues with variability in the water and difficult adjusting my water pH with acid. So I figured going to RO filtered water was worth the cost at least to attempt to even out my water profile. I've only brewed once with RO water from this system but after calibrating my pH meter I can tell you I nailed...

United States on Sep 02, 2023

ProductReview: Came missing faucet adapter piece required to attach to sink and change size. Had to go buy a adapter piece from canadian tire for 7$ got unit running, ro water is tested much cleaner than tap yet to test the di filter water but I'm sure it's at 0ppm will work good for drinking and saltwater aquarium water. Other than the missing piece I'm happy, have it installed in the bathroom with waste going into the tub and a culligan collecting the clean, bit of a leak at the faucet connection plumber tape might fix.

Canada on Apr 14, 2023

MuskerhoundMuskerhound: I keep high-end tank-bred shrimp and invertebrates in planted aquariums and needed to upgrade to RO/DI water (then re-mineralize) in my tanks. The difference is night and day.
I live in an apartment, really glad to have found this. I attach it to my shower extension cord nozzle once a week to collect my top up and water change water. Its small enough to store and 100x easier (and cheaper) than going out to get distilled. I get 1 gallon every 18-30 mins dependant on pressure in my building that day, so leave and forget in a large container is easy. If you want to run from a shower hose, you will need an additional converter from a shower cord to the unit. Attached a pic if this applies to you.
You won't need to purchase and additional adapter if you are connecting directly to a sink tap, its included in the box.
Set up is easy if you watch the included video links. Super happy with this purchase. A+++

Canada on Mar 04, 2023

Shane: I'll start with the pro's first.

The RO Buddie is lightweight and easy to install, it came with everything I needed to get started. Most importantly the performance for removing solids is great! I live on a farm with well water and I went from 860ppm to 0ppm. Literally 0. I was shocked it got it that low.

Now onto the Cons.

Keep in mind that some of the Cons are inherent to all RO systems.

First off, you'll most likely get no where near 50 gallons per day. I'll be very very lucky to get 15 gallons in a 24 hr period. The way RO systems are rated for a certain GPD (in this case, 50gpd) is the input water has to have at least 60 psi and be at a temperature of 77 degrees Fahrenheit. (My guess is your initial TDS needs to be lower than 860ppm too.) I live in Canada and My water is about 9 Celsius (48F). That really impeads the performance. I think my water pressure in the house is around 55psi (although in my pumphouse it is reading 65psi) This impeads output as well.

Another big con (the biggest for me) is the waste water. The 3:1 ratio isn't even close. For every 2.5 gallons I'm filling up my washing machine with waste water. And it's 35 gallons or...

Canada on Mar 12, 2020