This tool recommends which Aquamor scale-control cartridge fits your commercial ice machine, based on how much ice it makes per day, with taste/chlorine carbon available as an optional add-on. Ice machine cartridges work differently from the resin softener cartridges on the other calculator on this site. They use a phosphate scale inhibitor on a fixed replacement schedule, not a hardness-driven gallon life. This tool is built around that mechanism.
Restaurant and convenience-store operators, foodservice equipment installers, and anyone specifying or maintaining a commercial ice machine's water filtration.
- Your ice machine's rated production in pounds per 24 hours (it's on the spec plate or spec sheet, or pick a machine type below for a rough estimate), or, if you don't have a machine picked out yet, your guest/cover count instead
- Whether it makes cube/batch ice or nugget/flake ice
- Optionally, a hardness or TDS reading for your feed water
Most people should use the first option and enter the machine's nameplate rating. Use guest count only if you don't yet have a machine picked out and want a starting size based on how many guests you serve.
Found on the machine's spec plate or spec sheet. 1 ton = 2,000 lb/day. This tool sizes correctly across the full commercial range, from small undercounter units up through 10,000+ lb/day (5+ tons/day) multi-machine banks.
Batch (cube, half-dice, crescent, gourmet) machines use more water per pound than continuous nugget/flake machines. Defaults to Cube/Batch.
No is the default: many operations deliberately keep the feed water's chlorine residual, because it helps keep the ice machine itself clean and sanitary, stripping it with carbon removes that benefit. Switch to Yes if ice taste and clarity matter for the application (for example ice served directly in drinks, where chlorine taste would carry through), the recommendation then switches to a combo cartridge that adds carbon.
Advanced: multiple machines on one filter
Each machine adds about 1.25 GPM of peak design flow. This raises the flow (GPM) requirement only. It does not change the daily gallons math above, which is already driven by total ice production.
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| Model | Part # | GPM | Gallons (throughput rating) | Notes |
|---|
| Model | Part # | GPM | Gallons (carbon rating) | Notes |
|---|
Capacities and flow ratings above are pulled directly from Aquamor's current product data. BGM-series equivalents exist for most of these BGX models for BGM-series housings: Aquamor's current data shows some BGM capacity ratings differing from the BGX figures above, so confirm the exact BGM part and its rated capacity with Aquamor before substituting.
The BGX/BGM ice-machine cartridges recommended by this tool are sediment + phosphate scale-inhibitor cartridges, not ion-exchange softeners. The phosphate is a solid media that dissolves slowly and steadily, dosing the water so it sequesters hardness rather than removing it. That's why the replacement interval is fixed (9 to 12 months) instead of driven by a hardness-based gallon life like a resin softener cartridge. Harder water or higher water use calls for a bigger cartridge (more phosphate media in reserve), never a shorter interval.
An ice machine has two different water problems. Scale from hardness fouls the evaporator plate and water valves and cuts production. That's handled by the phosphate media. Chlorine, taste, and clarity carry straight into the ice itself as off-taste and haze. That's handled by a carbon block. Aquamor's default ice recommendation is scale control alone: many operations deliberately want to keep the feed water's chlorine residual, because it helps keep the machine itself clean and sanitary, and stripping it with carbon removes that benefit. Carbon is a deliberate opt-in, combined with scale control in one combo "P" cartridge, for applications where ice taste and clarity matter more than that residual benefit.
| Suffix | Media | Ice role |
|---|---|---|
| P (no carbon models) | Sediment + phosphate, no carbon | The default ice recommendation, scale control while keeping the feed water's chlorine residual intact for machine cleanliness |
| P (combo) | Carbon block + phosphate scale inhibitor | The opt-in when ice taste/chlorine reduction matters, scale control and carbon in one cartridge |
| X | Carbon block only, no phosphate | Not a scale solution alone, never recommended by itself for ice |
| N / W | Ion-exchange softener (grain-rated) | A different application (espresso machines, steamers), out of scope for ice; see the Resin Cartridge Sizing Calculator instead |
Commercial ice machines are specified and sold by ice production in pounds per 24 hours. It's the number on the machine's spec plate and the number every filter sizing chart keys off of. This tool converts that figure to an estimated daily water use (0.15 gallons per pound for cube/batch ice, 0.12 for nugget/flake, since continuous nugget/flake machines skip the harvest-melt and purge water that batch machines use), then to an annual throughput used to check the cartridge's rated gallon capacity.
A machine's rated production is a nameplate number, not what it actually makes hour to hour. Industry practice is to buy an ice machine about 20% above the capacity actually needed (sized at roughly 1.5 lb of ice per guest), so a machine bought that way typically runs at around 80% of its nameplate rating on average, which is why this tool loads at 80% by default. Raise the figure toward 100% for a machine genuinely running flat out; lower it if the machine is known to be lightly used.
If you don't have a machine picked out yet, the "Size by guest count" option runs the same industry numbers from the other end: guest count times 1.5 lb per guest gives the ice actually needed per day, and adding the same 20% headroom Aquamor uses for the average-usage default gives a suggested machine nameplate to shop for. That suggested nameplate then runs through the exact same pipeline as if you had typed it into the machine-rating field directly, including the 80% usage derate and the nameplate-basis peak-flow check.
These three numbers form one coherent model, not three independent figures. Suggested nameplate = need x 1.2 (headroom). Effective sizing basis = nameplate x 80% usage = (need x 1.2) x 0.80 = need x 0.96. Derating the suggested nameplate by the usage default lands back on almost exactly the actual ice requirement you started from, which is the point: the headroom assumption and the usage default are two views of the same 20% margin, not two separate fudges stacked on top of each other.
Separately from the daily gallons math, the recommended cartridge's rated flow (GPM) has to clear the machine's peak fill rate, the instantaneous rate during a fill cycle, which runs much higher than the 24-hour average. Aquamor's design-flow figure for ice is about 1.25 GPM per machine. This check always runs on the full nameplate basis, never the derated average-usage figure, a machine calling for water fills at full rate regardless of how often it runs.
At high enough production, required 12-month throughput can exceed the rated capacity of every single cartridge in the lineup, at the 80% default, that starts around 3,425 lb/day nameplate on the scale-only (default) ladder, or around 6,050 lb/day if you've switched to the combo (carbon opt-in) ladder, since its largest cartridge carries more capacity. Rather than stop at the largest cartridge and understate what's needed, this tool recommends multiple cartridges of that same largest model installed in parallel: the quantity is the required annual gallons divided by one cartridge's rated capacity, rounded up, bumped higher again if needed so the combined flow of the whole bank still clears the peak-flow check. There is no production level this tool tops out at or errors on.
Harder feed water does not shorten the replacement interval and this tool does not compute a hardness-driven gallon life for the scale function. Elevated hardness or TDS is only a signal that more phosphate media may be needed to keep dosing adequate across the fixed interval. Aquamor's standing guidance for elevated-hardness applications is to double whatever cartridge count is already recommended, rather than move to a different schedule. This hardness-driven doubling is kept separate from the parallel-cartridge count above: the two are never silently multiplied together into one number, so you can see exactly what each one is contributing.
Aquamor's rule of thumb is that about 1 ounce of phosphate media (roughly 1 cubic inch) provides about 10,000 gallons of dosing capacity. This tool shows a required-ounces figure so you can see the scale of media needed for your annual throughput. It is a transparency figure, not a per-cartridge specification, since Aquamor does not publish per-SKU phosphate ounce data for every model in the current catalog. When multiple cartridges are recommended in parallel, the ounce figure is the total across the whole bank.
Sizing estimator, actual replacement timing and performance depend on feed-water chemistry, real usage patterns, and site conditions. Ice production and flow figures are per Aquamor product data; where a specific figure is not published for a given configuration, confirm with Aquamor engineering before ordering.