can you use tap water for a waterfarm?

I have a waterfarm system I wanna try.
I was just wanting to know if you need to use R.O water or
can you use just plain tap water?
What ppm # is too high for tap water?
My tap is 380 ppm.

I don't know anything about tap water in a waterfarm. But I have used tap water in coco, which is considered a hydro medium, and it still produced good bud. The main issue I had was pH to ppm ratio. The tds of tap water is very high and so is the pH. If you add a drop of pH down to DI water the pH plummets while you would have to use 1/4 tsp or better to bring tap water to that same pH. I try to avoid using anything to buffer the pH by finding the right ratios of my dina gro protekt to the foliage pro or bloom to achieve the right pH. But that is not possible in tap water, you'll always have to use a decent amount of pH down to get it to the right level.

You probably can use tap. But I would try to invest in a decent water filtration system. RO systems are more affordable, but DI systems produce the purest water. Plus a cheap RO system takes quite a long time to fill just a gallon of water where deionizers' output volume is equal to the input. RO water is typically in the teens to low 20's ppm, where DI water is 1-2 ppm.

My dumb ass left my RO system sitting out by the spigot one night, and it froze and busted the membrane housings. Luckily my dad runs a small business washing windows which requires deionized water. So I just started going to his house and using his DI system to fill a 7gal water storage container. Reservoir changes now only take me a few minutes versus an hour waiting for the RO filter to fill my bucket.

VACAVILLE said:

I have a waterfarm system I wanna try.
I was just wanting to know if you need to use R.O water or
can you use just plain tap water?
What ppm # is too high for tap water?
My tap is 380 ppm.

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I run my well water 200 ppm in my rdwc setup never had a problem.

380 is pretty damn high but if you change your rez at least when you have added back as much water as your rez holds it should be fine.

That basically means you could get thru all of veg without changing if you want. I use RO and only do a change after the stretch and sometimes not even then.

So a waterfarm holds 2 gallons.
So you say i dont need to change the water till i add back 2 gallons of water.

Your fine with tap unless its real fucked up

If anything the mild amount of chlorine if it has it will help keep it cleaner

Ro is nice for organics so you dont have to bubble the water for 24 hrs to get rid of chlorine.

Ro is nice cause you know whats in the water

But on the same hand it you usually have to add cal mag to ro water

VACAVILLE said:

So a waterfarm holds 2 gallons.
So you say i dont need to change the water till i add back 2 gallons of water.

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That's about the general rule when running with hard water. Your plants use very little of the minerals in the water so once you've added back the same amount then the ppm from your water is almost double from a fresh batch so you'd have about 750ppm of crap. Don't forget to allow for the ppm in your water when mixing up your nutes and subtract it from the total.

I thought a water farm had a main rez and then pails with the plants. If so you need to know the total amount of all water used in the system. Need to know that to mix your nutes properly too.

@Cold$moke, I'd rather have to add a bit of CalMag than deal with all the crap in my water. Mine comes out of a dugout on my property and is about 400ppm. pH8 and quite alkaline. All sorts of organisms that get thru a 5 micron filter. The town water is not much better and the only difference is it has chlorine added.

OldMedUser said:

That's about the general rule when running with hard water. Your plants use very little of the minerals in the water so once you've added back the same amount then the ppm from your water is almost double from a fresh batch so you'd have about 750ppm of crap. Don't forget to allow for the ppm in your water when mixing up your nutes and subtract it from the total.

I thought a water farm had a main rez and then pails with the plants. If so you need to know the total amount of all water used in the system. Need to know that to mix your nutes properly too.

@Cold$moke, I'd rather have to add a bit of CalMag than deal with all the crap in my water. Mine comes out of a dugout on my property and is about 400ppm. pH8 and quite alkaline. All sorts of organisms that get thru a 5 micron filter. The town water is not much better and the only difference is it has chlorine added.

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I hear ya bud
Im on a well with 125 and 7 ish lol i lucked out