PPM questions, please help!

The tap water in my area is hard, 450-500 ppm hard if not higher at times. I've tried a Brita pitcher filter and a GE faucet filter and neither had any or little affect on the PPM. So my options at this point are these:

1. Buy lots of distilled water. I don't like this one as I see it ending up being the most costly over time. Plus, I'd have to buy a whole lot of 1 gallon jugs. Not sure I could find them any larger in my area.

2. Purchase a Reverse Osmosis system. My question about these will it get my PPM down to 0? or at least something that is manageable like ~200.

3. Purchase a Distiller. This one I know will get my PPM down to ~0, however, it seems to me that I'd have to run the thing a whole lot to ensure I always have enough water on hand. Plus, there is the added cost of the additional electricity it will use.
I just did a little research on distillers and they are not for me. Cheap ones do 1 gallon in 5 hours... would take me a week to get enough water... yuck.

4. Is the PPM that big a deal? Should I try a grow out with the high PPM or do I really need to get it lower?


I'm going to be running a DWC system with 6 plants for flowering.

Your water is very hard. The reverse osmosis system will remove 99% of the particulate matter in your water, but it is a very wasteful and slow process. If you don't want to go this route, you could try using General Hydroponics Flora Series and replace the regular Micro with hard water micro. This will help to eliminate the problems with cal/mag that you would normally see with water as hard as yours.

JohnnyPotSeed1969 said:

Your water is very hard. The reverse osmosis system will remove 99% of the particulate matter in your water, but it is a very wasteful and slow process. If you don't want to go this route, you could try using General Hydroponics Flora Series and replace the regular Micro with hard water micro. This will help to eliminate the problems with cal/mag that you would normally see with water as hard as yours.

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How do you mean this is a slow and wasteful process? As I understand how the RO systems work, they come with a faucet of their own that you use to get the filtered water from. I don't mind it taking 10-20 mins to fill my containers with water.

Thanks for the info on the nutes, I've got Fox Farm nutes right now. I'll have to check to see if they offer a hard water solution.

I would really rather try and get the PPM down.

How do you mean this is a slow and wasteful process?

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What he means by waste is that R/O units work by pushing water through a semi-permeable membrane, clean water goes through to your reservoir and dirty water goes down the drain, so if your water is metered, it will cost you. However, if you're on a well or you aren't metered, it won't make any difference. In terms of it being slow? Well, it takes my unit about 4-6 hours to fill the 4 gallon reservoir, so that gives me about 16-20 gal. a day. That may be slow for some, but it's plenty for me. Oh and BTW, when I say it takes 4-6 hours to fill the reservoir, I mean the R/O unit's reservoir, it only takes about 5 minutes to drain the tank (fill a 4 gallon container).

I bought a good 5 stage R/O unit last year for $500.00 and let me tell you, it was worth every penny. I tested my well water before I got the unit and the results were a TDS of 188uS (~132 ppm at .7 conv) and a PH of 8.2. After I installed the R/O system and tested the water, the results were a TDS of 10uS (~7 ppm at .7 conv) and a PH of 7.0. Perfect. I can't even buy water this clean, other than distilled which is costly and hard to find.

IMO, I would highly recommend getting one of these units. Make sure you buy a quality unit. Remember, you get what you pay for. It may seem expensive at first but it'll pay for itself in a year or so, and you'll have pure, clean, PH neutral water for your plants and yourself!

I just seen this on another post, sounds good and comes with a free tds pen. I guess they sell it at home depot for like $40 I think. Might be my next purchase soon as my city water is nasty. They promise 0 ppm and a max of 6ppm when it's time to replace. www.zerowater.com

bango bongo

lol, thank doniawon for finding zerowater and tds pen.

has anybody bought or used this zero water pitcher?

greenearth5 said:

has anybody bought or used this zero water pitcher?

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I've seen these at home depot as well. The actual unit costs around $80-90. By looks of their website it should take the PPM down a lot. Might be worth picking one up and seeing how it works and if it doesn't I guess I could always return it. And another thing, it's just the unit... you'd need some way to dispense it. They sell a "Glass Carafe Dispenser" the unit can sit on. Looks like total price of unit and carafe would be around $100. Could make it work without a dispenser I'm sure.

buying distilled water is still cheaper for me

i just bout a ppm meter so ill see what the best cheapest water

So I went out and bought a gallon of distilled water from a local grocery store, cost all of $0.75. If I mix this with my tap water 2:1 (2 parts distilled, 1 part tap) I end up with around ~200 ppm. Is this low enough to work with or should I not bother with mixing it and just buy a bunch from the grocery store. Only reason I would want to mix it with the tap is so I don't have to buy as must distilled water. What do you all think?