This reply will be a bit long, but hopefully folks will find pieces useful to them.
I have my water stored in my garage furnace room with an auto-shutoff valve tied to the RO unit. In my container, I have a powerhead to circulate the water, and a 150 watt heater to keep the water at about 73 degrees or so. I have a large pump that I bought on Amazon for like $60 (I can look it up if anyone is interested) and that pump outputs to a garden hose adapter. The pump itself is plugged into an auto-shutoff sensor (plumb-bob type device). The pump is activated by remote control outlet. OK, so what this all means. I hook up a food safe hose to my pump connection, run the hose upstairs in my house. From upstairs, I push my hand-held remote to turn the water on. I fill up 32 gallon Brute containers in two different rooms. These hold the pure RO water. If I use enough water from my main, garage storage, the plumb-bob float trips the power to the pump at a safe level so that my pump never goes dry (safety measure). Once my upstairs containers are full, I take the hose back down and unhook it from the pump.
Now, in the containers in the rooms upstairs, I have medium sized Rio powerheads hooked up with, I think, like 1/2" hose. When I want to mix up some water for a water change, I do it right there in the room. I run from the storage container about a gallon of water into a 5 gallon jug, add my remineralizer, finish filling the jug to 5 gallons. I then shake it well to mix my powder up. I test my params for the 5 gallon jug, then pour the water out of the jug into a Brute 20 gallon food safe garbage can that is on wheels. I repeat this process for as much water as I need for my changes. Once I have my water all mixed - wait for it - I have another smaller Rio pump with say 3/8" hose or so that I put in my Brute 20 gallon. I drain the water out of my tanks into 5 gallon buckets, and then turn on the pump from the Brute, and finish the water changes by filling the tanks back up.
OK, so that is a lot to write out, but it all goes much easier than what it probably sounds like typed up. The benefits for me is that I have water close at hand to my tanks that is still pure RO. I can now easily top off any tank in my rooms, or I can mix my different "recipes" right there in the room for the water changes. Since I have different requirements (Neos vs. Cards, etc) in the same room, it makes more sense to make up the water in batches. By doing it at 5 gallon jug intervals, I have much tighter quality control than trying to do large batches right into the 20 gallon Brute (had to learn that one the hard way for a while). Anyway, this process has worked well for me.
I have my water stored in my garage furnace room with an auto-shutoff valve tied to the RO unit. In my container, I have a powerhead to circulate the water, and a 150 watt heater to keep the water at about 73 degrees or so. I have a large pump that I bought on Amazon for like $60 (I can look it up if anyone is interested) and that pump outputs to a garden hose adapter. The pump itself is plugged into an auto-shutoff sensor (plumb-bob type device). The pump is activated by remote control outlet. OK, so what this all means. I hook up a food safe hose to my pump connection, run the hose upstairs in my house. From upstairs, I push my hand-held remote to turn the water on. I fill up 32 gallon Brute containers in two different rooms. These hold the pure RO water. If I use enough water from my main, garage storage, the plumb-bob float trips the power to the pump at a safe level so that my pump never goes dry (safety measure). Once my upstairs containers are full, I take the hose back down and unhook it from the pump.
Now, in the containers in the rooms upstairs, I have medium sized Rio powerheads hooked up with, I think, like 1/2" hose. When I want to mix up some water for a water change, I do it right there in the room. I run from the storage container about a gallon of water into a 5 gallon jug, add my remineralizer, finish filling the jug to 5 gallons. I then shake it well to mix my powder up. I test my params for the 5 gallon jug, then pour the water out of the jug into a Brute 20 gallon food safe garbage can that is on wheels. I repeat this process for as much water as I need for my changes. Once I have my water all mixed - wait for it - I have another smaller Rio pump with say 3/8" hose or so that I put in my Brute 20 gallon. I drain the water out of my tanks into 5 gallon buckets, and then turn on the pump from the Brute, and finish the water changes by filling the tanks back up.
OK, so that is a lot to write out, but it all goes much easier than what it probably sounds like typed up. The benefits for me is that I have water close at hand to my tanks that is still pure RO. I can now easily top off any tank in my rooms, or I can mix my different "recipes" right there in the room for the water changes. Since I have different requirements (Neos vs. Cards, etc) in the same room, it makes more sense to make up the water in batches. By doing it at 5 gallon jug intervals, I have much tighter quality control than trying to do large batches right into the 20 gallon Brute (had to learn that one the hard way for a while). Anyway, this process has worked well for me.
