Water: The Most Essential Compound
- Thread starter doc111
- Start date
Thanks so much for this post Doc. Much needed information for any level of grower I'd think, more so for me since I'm just starting out.
I've been reading a lot of people talking about how important it is to flush your plants a week before you harvest, to get rid of the nutrients. If I'm just using my normal tap water do I still need to do this ? Or is this only something you need to do if you're adding all sorts of store bought nutes to the grow ? Big bud, some of these others, etc ,
Here's my water specs for where I live, measured in milligrams per litre. I don't have any idea how this works out with this threads ppm readings though, anyone else have a thought if this is ok maybe ?
Alkalinity- raw- <1.0 treated - 18.0
Calcium- raw- 1.06 treated- 4.2
Chloride- raw-7.2 treated- 8.8
Fluoride- raw- <0.10 treated- 0.62
Hardness (CaC03)- raw- 4.4 treated- 12.5
Hardness (Grains)- raw- 0.31 treated- 0.90
Sodium- raw- 4.3 treated- 0.41
Any help would be appreciated !!
I've been reading a lot of people talking about how important it is to flush your plants a week before you harvest, to get rid of the nutrients. If I'm just using my normal tap water do I still need to do this ? Or is this only something you need to do if you're adding all sorts of store bought nutes to the grow ? Big bud, some of these others, etc ,
Here's my water specs for where I live, measured in milligrams per litre. I don't have any idea how this works out with this threads ppm readings though, anyone else have a thought if this is ok maybe ?
Alkalinity- raw- <1.0 treated - 18.0
Calcium- raw- 1.06 treated- 4.2
Chloride- raw-7.2 treated- 8.8
Fluoride- raw- <0.10 treated- 0.62
Hardness (CaC03)- raw- 4.4 treated- 12.5
Hardness (Grains)- raw- 0.31 treated- 0.90
Sodium- raw- 4.3 treated- 0.41
Any help would be appreciated !!
AB Bud Soon
Member
I also have some questions about water quality (well water...not municipal supply). Here are the h2o test results. Unfortunately from 2011, but at least it gives me a place to start looking at what I'll need to do. This will be for 1000+ plant mmj warehouse grow.
pH=8.5
Calcium: 4.6mg/l
Magnesium: 0.8 mg/l
sodium: 482 mg/l
Potassium: 1.4 mg/l
Iron: 0.05 mg/l
Manganese <0.005mg/l
Chloride: 2.6 mg/l
Fluoride: 1.5 mg/l
Nitrate-N: <.05 mg/l
Nitrite-N: <.02 mg/l
Sulfate (SO4): 517 mg/l
Hydroxide: <5 mg/l
Carbonate: 16 mg/l
Bicarbonate: 629 mg/l
P-Alkalinity (as CaCO3) : 13 mg/l
T-Alkalinity (as CaCO3) : 542 mg/l
TOTAL DISSOLVED SOLIDS: 1330 mg/l
Hardness: 15 mg/l
Ionic Balance: 98%
I'm no water expert by any means. But from looking at some of these numbers, I think I will have to go with a good RO system and some pHDown.
Any feedback would be awesome
pH=8.5
Calcium: 4.6mg/l
Magnesium: 0.8 mg/l
sodium: 482 mg/l
Potassium: 1.4 mg/l
Iron: 0.05 mg/l
Manganese <0.005mg/l
Chloride: 2.6 mg/l
Fluoride: 1.5 mg/l
Nitrate-N: <.05 mg/l
Nitrite-N: <.02 mg/l
Sulfate (SO4): 517 mg/l
Hydroxide: <5 mg/l
Carbonate: 16 mg/l
Bicarbonate: 629 mg/l
P-Alkalinity (as CaCO3) : 13 mg/l
T-Alkalinity (as CaCO3) : 542 mg/l
TOTAL DISSOLVED SOLIDS: 1330 mg/l
Hardness: 15 mg/l
Ionic Balance: 98%
I'm no water expert by any means. But from looking at some of these numbers, I think I will have to go with a good RO system and some pHDown.
Any feedback would be awesome
grassgirl69
New Member
I've always used water straight out of my brita filter just because I knew the water was hard in my area. My plants have always came out wonderfully!
youknowthekid!
Active Member
So without reading more in depth, a good RO filter will make water better on all accounts for drinking and watering plants? High sodium concentrations for fat persons consideration aside, the water is perfect right?
growkid5709
New Member
Sorry if i have posted this in the wrong place but i am a new grower and my plant is 6 days old web should i start it on nutes also it is getting cery tall any help would be great thanks
aussiecloud
New Member
lol, I piss on my plants and they love it.
tstick
Well-Known Member
Hi. Thanks for the great thread.
I decided to do an experiment and so I bought one of these:
http://familybedrock.com/garden-hose-filter
I think the plants like it and there is no salt residue on the soil….fairly cheap.
I decided to do an experiment and so I bought one of these:
http://familybedrock.com/garden-hose-filter
I think the plants like it and there is no salt residue on the soil….fairly cheap.
bravedave
Well-Known Member
Ok, my head is going to explode after reading all this. So I am looking for generalities. I have a well that produces pretty hard water, thus I have a salt based water conditioner. In "general" should this conditioned water be fine for my plants? Better if I filter it? I also live near a lake...in general, if filtered, would this water be fine for my plants?
Dat Dank
Active Member
They probably do. I heard urine is high in nitrogen.
tstick
Well-Known Member
I would filter it all just to be safe. That little inline filter I bought (link in my last post) would probably be good. They cost about $40.00 and supposedly last a long time. -my 2 cents.
Last edited:
bravedave
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the response. I actually read through these 28 pages one more time once the ticking stopped in my head... and the second time was a charm. As I too can get a gallon of RO water locally for next to nothing and the fact that my needs are small...I am going that route. While also, like you advise, getting a filter to have on hand.
Rod Roc
Member
Great article nice to see the science that can make all things better.Water is water right? Wrong. I see a lot of growers that have all this knowledge about nutrients and photoperiods but know very little about the water they use and that not all water is created equal and some water isn't very well suited for growing at all. I decided to do this thread to help educate growers about the water they use and why it's important to understand "The most essential compound".
What is "Hard Water"?
Perhaps you have on occassion noticed mineral deposits on your cooking dishes, or rings of insoluble soap scum in your bathtub. These are not signs of poor housekeeping, but are rather signs of hard water from the municipal water supply. Hard water is water that contains cations with a charge of +2, especially Ca2+ and Mg2+. These ions do not pose any health threat, but they can engage in reactions that leave insoluble mineral deposits. These deposits can make hard water unsuitable for many uses, and so a variety of means have been developed to "soften" hard water; i.e.,remove the calcium and magnesium ions.
Problems with Hard Water
Mineral deposits are formed by ionic reactions resulting in the formation of an insoluble precipitate. For example, when hard water is heated, Ca2+ ions react with bicarbonate (HCO3-) ions to form insoluble calcium carbonate (CaCO3), as shown in Equation 1.
(1)
This precipitate, known as scale, coats the vessels in which the water is heated, producing the mineral deposits on your cooking dishes. In small quantities, these deposits are not harmful, but they may be frustrating to try to clean. As these deposits build up, however, they reduce the efficiency of heat transfer, so food may not cook as evenly or quickly in pans with large scale deposits. More serious is the situation in which industrial-sized water boilers become coated with scale: the cost in heat-transfer efficiency can have a dramatic effect on your power bill! Furthermore, scale can accumulate on the inside of appliances, such as dishwashers, and pipes. As scale builds up, water flow is impeded, and hence appliance parts and pipes must be replaced more often than if Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions were not present in the water.
Some Strategies to "Soften" Hard Water
For large-scale municipal operations, a process known as the "lime-soda process" is used to remove Ca2+ and Mg2+ from the water supply. Ion-exchange reactions, similar to those you performed in this experiment, which result in the formation of an insoluble precipitate, are the basis of this process. The water is treated with a combination of slaked lime, Ca(OH)2, and soda ash, Na2CO3. Calcium precipitates as CaCO3, and magnesium precipitates as Mg(OH)2. These solids can be collected, thus removing the scale-forming cations from the water supply.
To see this process in more detail, let us consider the reaction for the precipitation of Mg(OH)2. Consultation of the solubility guidelines in the experiment reveals that the Ca(OH)2 of slaked lime is moderately soluble in water. Hence, it can dissociate in water to give one Ca2+ ion and two OH- ions for each unit of Ca(OH)2 that dissolves. The OH- ions react with Mg2+ ions in the water to form the insoluble precipitate. The Ca2+ ions are unaffected by this reaction, and so we do not include them in the net ionic reaction (Equation 2). They are removed by the separate reaction with CO32- ions from the soda ash.
(2)
Household water softeners typically use a different process, known as ion exchange. Ion-exchange devices consist of a bed of plastic (polymer) beads covalently bound to anion groups, such as -COO-. The negative charge of these anions is balanced by Na+ cations attached to them. When water containing Ca2+ and Mg2+ is passed through the ion exchanger, the Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions are more attracted to the anion groups than the Na+ ions. Hence, they replace the Na+ ions on the beads, and so the Na+ ions (which do not form scale) go into the water in their place.
Figure 1
When hard tapwater passes through the ion exchanger (left), the calcium ions from the tapwater replace the sodium ions in the ion exchanger. The softened water, containing sodium ions in place of calcium ions, can be collected for household use.
Unfortunately, many people with high blood pressure or other health problems must restrict their intake of sodium. Because water softened by this type of ion exchange contains many sodium ions, people with limited sodium intakes should avoid drinking water that has been softened this way. Several new techniques for softening water without introducing sodium ions are beginning to appear on the market.