Is Distilled Water Bad to Use for Watering Your Plants?

old&stilldoinit

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the great info guy its definitely appreciated. Is there any veg nutes that you recommend? Are the Fox Farm line of nutes good? If so would you use "grow big" for veg and then "Big Bloom" for flower?
bud all of the FF stuff is good just sayin, I use "age old grow" for veg. and a.o.g. bloom for flower. love it.
 

Rrog

Well-Known Member
standard Carbon filters are not suitible to remove chlorine and chloramine. The chlorine needs a lot of time in contact with the carbon to adsorb. A filter is pour-thru and not enough time to remove much at all.

Just sayin
 

heckler73

Well-Known Member
standard Carbon filters are not suitible to remove chlorine and chloramine. The chlorine needs a lot of time in contact with the carbon to adsorb. A filter is pour-thru and not enough time to remove much at all.

Just sayin
A lot of time? Maybe not as much as you think, but yes it needs to be given time to react, so...

Residual free chlorine can be reduced to harmless chlorides by activated carbon or
chemical reducing agents. An activated carbon bed is very effective in the dechlorination of
RO feed water according to following reaction:
C + 2Cl2 + 2H2O → 4HCl + CO2


http://www.dow.com/webapps/lit/litorder.asp?filepath=liquidseps/pdfs/noreg/609-02034.pdf

CO2? Bonus! :mrgreen:

For free available chlorine (FAC), this takes only about fifteen minutes, which means that a small amount of carbon can achieve an acceptable steady-state condition if the flow rate is slow or intermittent. For “combined chlorine” (chloramine), the reaction is much slower, and more carbon or more contact time is needed to achieve equivalent reductions.


https://www.everpure.com/know your water/Pages/CloramineandChlorine.aspx
 

az2000

Well-Known Member
chlorine yes, but what is more commonly used now today or in conjunction with chlorine is chloramine, which cannot be removed by just sitting it out and must be filtered out
Or, just add a pinch of sugar to encourage bacterial growth which will exhaust the slight disinfectant in the tap water. Tap water comes from a closed system. The amount of chlorine/chloramine is small because the system isn't expected to be unsanitary. It doesn't take much to exhaust that capacity to disinfect.
 

Sagethisplanet

Active Member

Sagethisplanet

Active Member
standard Carbon filters are not suitible to remove chlorine and chloramine. The chlorine needs a lot of time in contact with the carbon to adsorb. A filter is pour-thru and not enough time to remove much at all.

Just sayin
Right on thanks. Would a charcoal filter and the 24 hours be enough? It's not in my water just curious. Thanks Rrog.
 

Sagethisplanet

Active Member
standard Carbon filters are not suitible to remove chlorine and chloramine. The chlorine needs a lot of time in contact with the carbon to adsorb. A filter is pour-thru and not enough time to remove much at all.

Just sayin
Did YA see below? Dude man spelled it out real nice like?
 

Sagethisplanet

Active Member
A lot of time? Maybe not as much as you think, but yes it needs to be given time to react, so...

Residual free chlorine can be reduced to harmless chlorides by activated carbon or
chemical reducing agents. An activated carbon bed is very effective in the dechlorination of
RO feed water according to following reaction:
C + 2Cl2 + 2H2O → 4HCl + CO2


http://www.dow.com/webapps/lit/litorder.asp?filepath=liquidseps/pdfs/noreg/609-02034.pdf

CO2? Bonus! :mrgreen:
For free available chlorine (FAC), this takes only about fifteen minutes, which means that a small amount of carbon can achieve an acceptable steady-state condition if the flow rate is slow or intermittent. For “combined chlorine” (chloramine), the reaction is much slower, and more carbon or more contact time is needed to achieve equivalent reductions.

https://www.everpure.com/know your water/Pages/CloramineandChlorine.aspx
Awesome! Spelled out real nice like!
 

Sagethisplanet

Active Member
Or, just add a pinch of sugar to encourage bacterial growth which will exhaust the slight disinfectant in the tap water. Tap water comes from a closed system. The amount of chlorine/chloramine is small because the system isn't expected to be unsanitary. It doesn't take much to exhaust that capacity to disinfect.
That's awesome!
 

ShirkGoldbrick

Active Member
The misinformation...it hurts.

I've heard whackos say distilled and RO water are bad for you too, and that deionized water is really bad. It's a load of nonsense.

The water is just a carrier, you can supply all of the plants nutrients yourself. Either use dirt or use an all encompassing nutrient like dynagrow. You may have to add some calmag especially if you're using LEDs. The water isn't going to hurt the plant.

You can use tap water too, just it might be a bitch if your bicarbonates are through the roof and you have to use half a bottle of pH down and now you're getting lockout from a nutrient imbalance.
 

Budzbuddha

Well-Known Member
You can make your own Distilled water ...

Large pot of water , bring to boil ( few minutes full boil )
Let cool down and remain open and untouched for a couple days , chlorine and other elements are now diffused and out of it. PH it before use .

My water starts @7.3 at tap ......
After boil and cool down ( 1 - 2 days )
My PH ended @6.4-6.6
 

churchhaze

Well-Known Member
You can make your own Distilled water ...

Large pot of water , bring to boil ( few minutes full boil )
Let cool down and remain open and untouched for a couple days , chlorine and other elements are now diffused and out of it. PH it before use .

My water starts @7.3 at tap ......
After boil and cool down ( 1 - 2 days )
My PH ended @6.4-6.6
Boiling water will not make it distilled... The steam needs to be condensed to have distilled water!





You could definitely do it at home though ... if you really wanted to.

http://www.amazon.com/American-Educational-7-302-13-Borosilicate-Condenser/dp/B005QDPR22/
 

Alexander Supertramp

Well-Known Member
Without salts, how does it have ions? I thought the whole point about not ph testing pure water (distilled or RO) is that it's been deionized, that there's nothing there to measure.
Its about the number of electrons each water molecule has.And distilled water molecules generally lack one dut to the distillation process.
 
The misinformation...it hurts.

I've heard whackos say distilled and RO water are bad for you too, and that deionized water is really bad. It's a load of nonsense.

The water is just a carrier, you can supply all of the plants nutrients yourself. Either use dirt or use an all encompassing nutrient like dynagrow. You may have to add some calmag especially if you're using LEDs. The water isn't going to hurt the plant.

You can use tap water too, just it might be a bitch if your bicarbonates are through the roof and you have to use half a bottle of pH down and now you're getting lockout from a nutrient imbalance.
This guy knows what he is talking about!

I have been growing for about 10 years consistently and exclusively use distilled water. Its much easier to add what you need than try to remove what you don't....
 

schuylaar

Well-Known Member
Hello

I am using distilled water right out of the gallon to water my plants. I have been reading mixed viewpoints on this with some saying that its bad and some saying that it doesn't really matter. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Or recommendation for other types of water to use? Any help is much appreciated

- GB
when you distill the water you are removing vital nutrients for your plant..imho, that's the worst water.

i use tap, straight up and my weed smokes fine.
 
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