How to Install a Reverse Osmosis Water Filter _ Ask This Old House

**Improving Water Quality: A Homeowner’s Journey to Save Their Aquarium**

Richard and his family live in a beautiful home with a finished basement that doubles as a play and art room for their children. The space includes an aquarium, which has been a recent addition but hasn’t been without its challenges. Despite the love the kids have for their underwater friends, they’ve been struggling to keep the fish alive due to issues with their well water.

### The Well Water System

The family’s home is equipped with a well that draws water from over 600 feet deep. At around 400 feet down, the water begins its journey up through layers of shale and minerals, picking up calcium and other elements along the way. This has resulted in hard water, which occasionally leaves light stains on their toilet bowls and showerheads. While these issues aren’t severe—no rust or discoloration—they’ve noticed a slightly mineral-rich taste in their water.

To combat some of these problems, the family installed a whole-house filter that changes every three months. This system also includes a radon mitigation system, which was added when they purchased the home. The family takes pride in testing their water quality themselves using test strips, ensuring the water remains safe for both household use and their aquarium.

### Identifying the Problem with Water Quality

When it came to the aquarium, the fish weren’t faring well. After some research, Richard discovered that the pH level of their well water was slightly alkaline—around 8.0—which is higher than the neutral 7.0 level recommended for most aquatic life. While hard water isn’t typically deadly to fish, it can cause stress and other health issues over time.

The family decided to take action by introducing a Reverse Osmosis (RO) filtration system tailored specifically for their aquarium. This decision was made after consulting with experts at the local fish store, who suggested that addressing the pH imbalance could be key to saving their finned friends.

### The Reverse Osmosis Filtration System

Richard chose an RO system designed for localized water treatment in the basement where the aquarium is located. Here’s a breakdown of how it works:

1. **Carbon Filter**: This is the first stage of filtration, responsible for removing any taste and odor from the water. It’s similar to the filter used in a refrigerator’s water dispenser.

2. **Reverse Osmosis Membrane**: The heart of the system lies in this membrane, which allows only water molecules through on a molecular level. All impurities, including excess minerals and other contaminants, are flushed away into a dedicated drain line.

3. **Post-Filtration Filter**: This final stage adds an extra layer of protection against VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and heavy metals, ensuring the water is clean and safe for both humans and fish.

4. **Accumulator Tank**: Since RO systems produce water slowly, an accumulator tank ensures a steady supply of filtered water is available when needed.

5. **Regeneration Module**: While this system typically adds minerals back into the water to improve taste for drinking purposes, Richard decided not to include it for the aquarium since fish don’t require mineral-rich water.

### Installation Process

The installation process was meticulous. The first step was mounting a new dispenser faucet on the basement sink. This involved drilling a hole in the stainless steel sink and connecting it to the RO system’s manifold. The cold water supply was rerouted through the system, with a dedicated drain connection added to handle waste from the membrane.

### Finalizing the Setup

Once everything was connected, Richard turned the water back on. It would take several hours for the system to fully process the water and fill the accumulator tank. Only then would it be safe to use in the aquarium. The fish, who had been temporarily relocated, would soon have a new home filled with clean, pH-balanced water.

### Conclusion

Richard’s journey from identifying the problem with his well water to installing a specialized RO system highlights the importance of understanding your water quality and how it affects not just daily life but also the health of pets like fish. By taking proactive steps and consulting experts, he ensured that his family’s home remains a safe and healthy environment for both humans and aquatic life.

This project is a testament to the power of do-it-yourself solutions in addressing even the most challenging home improvement issues. Richard’s story not only solves a problem but also serves as an inspiration for others facing similar challenges.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthanks richard for coming it's nice to see you nice little part of the world you're living in out here yes we love our house we've got this fantastic finished basement it's great spot for the kids to hang out they've got a play zone over there and then we also have this area in here that they use a lot uh we call it the art room this is where they come hang out you can keep a pin down here forever yes yes if we just give them a fridge they'll never leave they do their homework down here and they asked recently to set up an aquarium so we did that for them you forgot something there's no fish in there oh you noticed um so we've been having some trouble uh keeping the fish alive an issue with the water we think so all right yeah so how do you get your water in this house we have a well i assume that and let's go see what you got here okay all right so this is the telltale sign of a well system this is a well tank now it's got a diaphragm in the middle it's half filled with air and half filled with water but the water comes from deep under the ground yes our well is over 600 feet deep and the draw doesn't start until about 400 feet down it's pretty deep that water goes through shale and it picks up calcium and minerals and all kinds you really don't know what you're going to get do you see any signs of hard water you know like stains on the shower head and stuff we have occasionally a light ring in the toilet bowl i think some maybe once in the last 10 years we've changed out a shower head because it got a little cruddy no rust nothing like that no discoloration how about taste do you like the taste tastes great i'll drink it all night okay all right so look at this this is a pretty beautiful installation on the heating system look at this uh the house was built by a plumber of course of course it would be perfect in his own house all right so you got water coming and you've got a filter yes we have a whole house filter it's got a string filter in there we change it out every three months it goes through a radon system yes we have a radon mitigation system that was put in about the time we purchased the house well this is really good so you got filtration cleaned up the raid on have you tested the water yes we have let's check that out we've actually become quite the chemists here okay oh there's your kit yes so we actually have a couple of different kinds of things we use but these test strips are great they test a couple of different things so i'll take one of these okay when we start testing that yep all right now we wait yes all right should be long enough let's see what the tail of the tape is okay this kit's really interesting to tell you just what's going on inside the water you've got all kinds of measurements here so the one right here is ph you know normal water would love to be at that neutral scale which is seven halfway between zero and fourteen but look at this now in fresh water right there we're up almost to eight see it these are pretty consistent with the results that we've been getting when we've been doing our own testing and when we've gone to the fish store to try to find out what's going on they had suggested that this could be a factor in how the fish are faring okay the scale also tells us that the hardness right here is pretty high but that's actually that's not going to kill the fish that's actually what you probably like the taste of the water oh yeah all right well i think i have a solution that will keep those fish alive all right i'll be back thank those kids for letting us commandeer their table yes all right i want to introduce you to a reverse osmosis system filtration system this is pretty complicated it is but it isn't now i chose this because you don't really have a whole house problem you've only got this ph problem locally so if we do it right here it'll work for the fish right here so an ro system's got a series of steps and i want to take you through it it's a system that comes out of the box pretty straightforward brilliant way to cut into the water supply right here and the water comes in here to this manifold and the first stage where the water goes through is a carbon filter you know that's the basic taste and odor filter as the first stage is that like what people have in the refrigerator right it's going to help clean up the taste mostly here and so the water will leave that chamber and go into this one which is the most important part of this system this is called the reverse osmosis filter cartridge now what's inside it is interesting it's actually a membrane you can see it right here and the water tries to pass through it and it only allows it through on a molecular level so all the impurities remain out here and will be discharged and it continues through to one more stage to just add a little bit more protection against vocs and heavy metals okay okay now what happens is inside this it's going to have all this build up over time so what you have to do is make sure you have a place for it to go so you'll notice at the bottom of this middle chamber there's a tube that's going to come right over here it's going to go up to the faucet that we're going to install on the sink and then it'll discharge to the drain so out of sight you'll be able to dump the impurities out of sight and make it go away okay now this thing is so fine that you're not going to be able to use this just open up the faucet so it needs to have an accumulator so off the top here that water will come through slowly steadily and fill this with a volume of water ready to go okay right here so that you can actually put to fill the fish tank and the last thing that's part of the system is actually a thing called a regeneration module because you've cleaned the water so much that many people would complain that it doesn't taste good okay so it actually puts some of the minerals back in okay so the one i don't think we actually need that for the fish they probably won't complain okay but i'm going to install it as part of the system so now that is it i think it'll solve the problem keep those fish not afloat alive okay all right next thing for me is to take all this and make it get installed down there first thing i'm going to do is mount this dispenser faucet now this is a stainless steel sink i could do a new knockout here if this was cast iron or something we could actually mount it just off the sink but you also have this spray hose not exactly in the best place do you care about that spray house not at all kids don't need it either right no all right then we are committed and we're off there we go okay position where you want it to be now the new connection is really ingenious it adapts right onto the threaded connection right there that leaves us a t for our new connection all right let's try that so now we're going to feed our cold water supply into the manifold itself and this is the ro1 so there's another port on the back and that's going to go out to the drain the home stretch is this drain connection that has to go in here and they make a pretty ingenious saddle connection we'll put it on this drain pipe and then drill a hole and make the connection all right there's our drain connection okay water is back on whoa whoa whoa what do you got there i got a fish we need a fish you might push it a little bit this machine is going to take an hour to three hours for all that water to work through that membrane and to fill that tank and then it's going to take another 24 hours before that water is good enough clean enough to put into there so he has to go back to where he he's going to go back to sleep with the fishes all right thank you you're a great help thank you so much richard thanks thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button make sure that you 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