RO Water System - Is it really necessary for everyone??

Title pretty much says it all. Seems like once again there are two band wagons... yes you need one no matter what... and no not everyone needs one.

I'm really on the fence. On one hand I'd love to start out with and also have the benefit of drinking 0 ppm water. But it seems like a lot of people that run these systems still end up with 5-20 ppm water anyway. And if you are lucky enough like me to have tap water on average coming out at 140 ppm - I really dont see much of a benefit. About the only thing in the water I would want to remove besides stuff I dont know is there... is the fluoride.

Currently I'm not needing to use any Cal Mag. I'm only using Advanced Nutrients 3 part system, superthrive, and some h202. I'm sure me saying Advanced Nutrients will rouse some comments on its own. lol If I go to an RO system... I'll for sure need some Cal Mag. Not to mention I'm not really sure where I'd put the tank for it. I'm only currently using about 8-9 gallons a week... that will max out around 30 gallons a week within the next 8 weeks... not including drinking water which would pretty much be a secondary use.

Just looking for some opinions with some facts and thought behind them.... not just a yeah... you need one because I've read you need it. Because again my plants are growing just fine as is with some awesome growth rates.

You drink tap water, you put it in your bong and it goes into your cooking. So it isn't toxic to you, where it could be toxic for the plants.

There could be bad stuff in it that will only present after growing with it. I doubt that pretty seriously, but the correct answer would be you need to have your water tested. I have 500-700 PPM water and my plants grew great but I was afraid to invest that much time into a plant then try to flower it on tap water. I almost had the sack to try it and then backed down. Also 500-700 PPM is just a rough guess on the salts my PPM meter uses, which is a shit load of I dunno what's in my water.

Yeah, tap water can cause a lot of problems, especially when you have hard water problems.

Don't really know else to say about this. The RO Water system is a tricky one for some folks and it's been problematic for me in the past, so I just avoid it now. The pH goes too low in many cases and then the plants start freaking out.

You might want to check out the pH Manifesto if you haven't seen it already. Yeah, it's by the guys at Advanced Nutrients and it really helps you to get control of the pH problems you're having.

http://www.growersunderground.com/blog/hydroponics-videos/ph-manifesto-your-buried-treasure-of-growing-secrets

Not sure I'm liking this new RIU format. Seems like it has a few bugs in it.

DivinePower said:

Title pretty much says it all. Seems like once again there are two band wagons... yes you need one no matter what... and no not everyone needs one.<SNIP>

And if you are lucky enough like me to have tap water on average coming out at 140 ppm - I really dont see much of a benefit. About the only thing in the water I would want to remove besides stuff I dont know is there... is the fluoride.

<SNIP>

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Keep it simple ! If you don't need it don't do it!

That's the point of the thread mr roll of the eyes. Establishing if there is a need, even if I currently do not see it. I - like you - do not know it all.

i do not know of a single grower in the UK that uses anything other than bog standard tap water.

tip top toker said:

i do not know of a single grower in the UK that uses anything other than bog standard tap water.

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DAMN that be awsome my water has a ph of fucking 8 and up sometimes i dont even know how they consider it drinkable, but i guess if your dieing of dehydration you wont complain, but my plants do haha. I started distilling my water and since i havn't had nute lock out but i mean it sunds like your water is realy good, my ppm is prolly rediculas

as does my water..... you add ph down and it's at growing levels. and ph8 water is perfectly drinkable, so long as it's chilled just checked the PPM right out of the tap and it's around 250, no idea whether that's good or bad, couldn't care. the plants ent broke so i'm not looking around trying to find a fix

ya when i lived in NY the tap worked fine for my ladys but the water in FL is way differnt iv never mesured ppm's im sure its way higher them 250 i mean there so much iron it leaves rust streaks on the shower walls shit realy sucks

It all depends on what is in your water. Where I live, my tap PPM if fairly low but we have fluoride and chloramine (chlorine and ammonia) in our water supply.

Yeah... same here with the fluoride... its something I'd like to get rid of but is it really worth $150-200 to get rid of it? Ugh. I probably will eventually - I just dont think I'm gonna break my back to do it now.

I picked up a Small Boy R/O filter for like I think 85 bucks. Not only is the peace of mind knowing I have clean water for my ladies worth it. But also filling up some jugs for the fridge to have pureeee water. I mean I don't buy water bottles anymore, because the water coming from my R/O is so much better. So in the long run. I think its worth it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/REVERSE-OSMOSIS-Hydro-Logic-Small-Boy-Hydroponics-/270413764087?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ef5ea95f7

100 bucks. Free shipping. I got mine at a local store on sale. Works great for smaller gardens.

using ro water just means you have to put everything back your self. great for soiless. not so great for dirt farmers. But then my well water runs 220ppm and 7-7.5. a little ph down and I'm good to go.

From someone who USED well water with only a ppm of 90 I use an R/O system for simple reason PH fluctuations. when i used my tab water the ph had to be watched daily when I got an R/O system it was weekly to NEVER! I've been doing the same style for quite sometime now and I never have to check my solution. Having pure water leaves me with NO worries that my solution is perfect.

Listen go to www.purewaterclub.com and buy a 60$ portable unit 100GPD, I got a couple of their units cheap but works just fine.

RO filters, like most things used by experienced growers, make growing easier. Usually the added yield brought about by using an RO filter system can be recouped with one grow if running a systems of say 600 watts or higher and if the initial water was a ppm of 150 or over from the tap.

With out a full water report it is impossible to really provide a quality answers as the answers quality can be no better than the input supplied and you really supplied nothing to work with.

Hydroponic growing is entirely different from soil growing. With soil growing the soils mineral content and the acids formed by organic decomposition provide buffering. Hydro nutrients mainly supply nutrients and even with the addition of extra calcium, magnesium etc there is still very little buffering capacity in a hydroponic nutrient. You really can't do much buffering capacity when you have the low pH's used in hydro. There are some minerals added for buffering above nutritional needs and the amounts added are based upon mixing the nutrients with pure water (IE RO or distilled water). However due to pH constraints they are of limited benefit. Adding more than the amounts typically used just displaces other nutrients you need for your plants. It is like have a one gallon bowl full of marbles of different colors (one for each different fertilizer salt ion). Say 10 colors and 1000 each. If you add water containing no ions then an equal number of each color is displaced by water. However if your water contains 200 red marbles and 200 green then adding the water will displace 40 marbles of each of the 10 colors and replace it with red and green. Typically this means calcium and magnesium. Not only does this effect the ratio of fertilizers it also effects the plants ability to uptake the other fertilizers. Plus consider that now your EC is actually represented by about 1/3 to 1/2 calcium and magnesium not a balance of fertilizers. Some say "just raise the EC 400 ppm". It just doesn't work that way however.

Can you grow with out using an RO filter system. Sure most people can. However most people have poorer yields and plant health and final potency by doing so. It is sorta like asking can one grow with out a pH meter, an EC meter or halide lights. Sure their are people growing without pH meters, EC meters and halide lights. However, the chances of that every happening often enough to offset the small equipment savings is not really even worth considering.

Saying things such as if it is safe to drink it is good enough for plants is absurd. For an example if you knew how a water treatment plant typically softens hard water down to around 150 ppm you would very likely not drink the water yet alone use it for growing mj. Google lime soda ash water softening or read this. http://www.gewater.com/handbook/ext_treatment/ch_7_precipitation.jsp

i have well water that i know is high in iron, i have grown a small decent crop in an aerogarden with this water.... comes out about 7.0 idk about the ec, my thought were that it being strait outa the earth and all should be healthy for the plant, like it would be for everything, idk could be wrong.... oh and we do have a filter, thats how i know its high in ron.

Mj is great it is grown form one extreem to the other. I like what I get from my grows. I would bet they could be better. But what the hell. You can dial in as much or as little as you want and still get crops better then what I smoked as a kid.

Water varies from source to source and from location to location. As an example: surface water typically contains more chemical contaminants and organic contaminants than ground water (well water). Ground water is typically higher in calcium, magnesium, manganese and iron. If you live in California and some other areas of rhe South West then you can have water high in Flourine that is "supposedly" lowered to safe levels by the water treatment facilities. I would not even consider drinking california untreated well water. Then you have all the changes and adulterations caused by the water treatment plants.

So really with out a complete water analysis to know the contaminants or concentrations of salts present it is merely safer to depend of a RO water filters as it is the most effective and reasonably priced filtration method available.

There are only a few people who post to this forum or the other growing forums that really know much about water analysis report interpretations or how that interpretation transfers over to causing nutrient up take problems. Those effects vary greatly depending on the formulations used, the growing methods and growing parameters, plus the stages of growth.

Considering the high value of mj it is usually considered easier to just use an RO filter rather than learn about or deal with the complications involved with the typical poor tap water supplied in most parts of the U.S., Canada or Western Europe.

Just checking in, saw the RO warni,,,, header and thought I'd mosy in.

I got to thinking one day a while back about the effects of RO water on the grow and maybe
it would help increase yields and FLAVOR. Yeah, that's one of them thoughts ol'bb should have let go,,,,,,

For Sale

One ChrystalClear RO System
100 gallons per day
Only used for three months, one grow.
Works great, strips out all the base minerals
and I had to by extra friggin additives to put em
back in!

$heap

Tap works just fine. The Acid Rain never affected my outdoor girls.
And they were MONSTERS.

Tap in the tubs, ph down and a lil' something, something to feed em.

and lot's of light and livestock fence for a scrog,,,,

if it's good enough for me,,,,,,,,,,


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