What are you using for water?

I feel for all you peeps. I used to work for a water treatment company and still have my inside connections that get me all the free 5 gallon jugs of RO water I could ever need

A curious fellow who was cocksure his rainwater pH is 7 might wonder if whatever was causing that from his roof or gutters might also be causing some problems. But I think that rules this one out.

FRICKITYFRICKTYFRESH said:

I feel for all you peeps. I used to work for a water treatment company and still have my inside connections that get me all the free 5 gallon jugs of RO water I could ever need

Click to expand...

I would go out of my mind if I had to go somewhere else to pick up 5 gallon jugs and lug them into the house, constantly, for my grows.

TreeFarmerCharlie said:

The chlorine/chloramine in tap water would need to be about 100x above acceptable levels to even begin to be a problem with plants. I used to filter my water through an RO filter, but got tired of all the waste, so I switched back to tap water over a year ago and have noticed no difference at all in the health of my plants. Believe it, or not, chlorine is actually an essential micronutrient for plant growth. If they get to toxic levels of chlorine then they will get burned leaves in a similar way that they do when they receive toxic levels of nitrogen.

Click to expand...

and that sir, is very good to know ! what about foliar feed? coz i like to spray my girls every eve and i usually leave the water for about 24 hours before doing it, otherwise i see the chlorine on the leaves. is that any harm?

ExoticKangaroo said:

Curious what everyone uses for water?

Click to expand...

I use RO and amend as necessary. Our municipal water supply is total shit, and they are constantly fucking with the balance. Some days it smells like waste water, some days like bleach, some days it's fine. It is ruining fixtures in out house and leaving black buildup everywhere. I would never use it on something I'm going to ingest. If yours is good, I dont see a problem with it, just know what they are using at the plant and be comfortable that you will be smoking that.

TreeFarmerCharlie said:

My plants seem pretty happy with unfiltered tap water.
View attachment 4579795

Click to expand...

Nice rig

Mr. Cheetah said:

and that sir, is very good to know ! what about foliar feed? coz i like to spray my girls every eve and i usually leave the water for about 24 hours before doing it, otherwise i see the chlorine on the leaves. is that any harm?

Click to expand...

I've honestly never foliar sprayed my plants because, when I started growing, I was warned the benefits are very small, and that new growers tend to way over do it causing mildew and/or mold. The white residue you are seeing on the leaves is probably calcium. There's a lot more Ca in tap water than there is chlorine.

Yer you aint going to see 3ppm unless its some super strong dye and its still not going to do any thing to leaves if sprayed on.

ExoticKangaroo said:

Curious what everyone uses for water? I'm using rainwater right now but sometimes my supply runs low and I'm in an area that rains a fair amount even. My tap water has chlorine and fluoride and a bunch of other junk in it. Does everyone make their own RO water or what?

Click to expand...

My tap water sucks. Yeah Yeah I know a thousand people will say tap water is fine but I know what’s in it because I have seen the test results. Did not realize how bad it was until I started growing in living soil.
My fridge has a filter that makes what comes through the tap tolerable to drink but I no longer put it on my weed plants. So.... then we bought an expensive RO filtration system that worked ok but it was wasteful; 3 gals of wastewater to 1 gal of clean. Used it until the dead of a harsh winter when it exploded in subzero temps; had it hooked to a garden hose ...doh! A total loss... So...,
My basement is a stone foundation; we run a dehumidifier 24/7 to keep it dry. Probly dump it out 2x day this time of year. Read you can put it on houseplants so that’s what I did. Canaries in the coal mine.... So
The house plants thrived for 5 years on a windowsill so why not use dehumidifier water on my weed plants? After all it’s just H2O. Been doing it this way for several more years now with no issues other than a need to constantly provide calcium. Was giving gen organics cal/mag plus for awhile but now that I’ve got a steady flow of composted material like eggshell from my worm bin there’s no longer a need for cal/mag in a soluble form.
I still collect rain in buckets when possible. In the winter I collect snow runoff. I also have access to a local spring on private land I can fill up some growlers when needed but dehumidifier water is my main source. It’s basically distilled...30 ppm

It depends on where you live, we have really good water here. I've never had an issue here...except the other day it was at 6.3 usually consistantly 7.0 to 7.2. I still ph if I have to, but often it's super close.

I use straight well water that reads from 7.1-7.5 depending on the time of year and rainfall. Most of the TDS that make my water a little hard is Ca.

The myth I think is this, most people who are running RO water are more likely to do other things right, and more people who run tap water are doing other things wrong, so then the first ingredient is what is blamed, I’ve ran RO and tap outdoors and indoors and haven’t honestly noticed a difference

hotrodharley said:

I’ve never seen rainwater with a pH of even 6. And I live in the middle of nowhere in Interior Alaska. Not some industrial setting.

Click to expand...

6.0 for me dude. It is Scotland where most of our rain comes from the west across 2500 miles of ocean

Rain water has to be slightly acidic i thought.

hotrodharley said:

Check the pH of your rainwater. Average 5.5-5.6.

Click to expand...

Mine comes in at 6 here in maine.

From my most recent rain

20ppm tap water is about as good as it gets.