What Everyone Using for Water?

[crizzo357]

distilled my way!

 

[OGKushman]

I R.O my tap

 

[mr.greengenes]

I'm not an expert, but I have worked in the water utility industry for 20 years and have taught college-level vocational classes for water distribution and water treatment (though not in several years). Most important is to check the source of your tap water; does it come from wells or from surface waters aka lakes, rivers, reservoirs. Well water is typically higher in mineral content than treated surface water and will tend to have a higher pH (hydrogen ions) and is more basic. Well water is generally treated only with chlorine as a residual disinfectant to reduce bacterial growth in the distribution system. Most water systems use Free Chlorine at .5 to 1 part per million parts (ppm), some use choramines (chlorine and ammonia) usually at a dosage of 1.5 ppm to 2.0 ppm. Chloramines are a weaker disinfectant but will stay in the distribution system longer without dissipating.
Treated surface water usually goes through a 'conventional' treatment process; coagulation/floculation where aluminum sulfate (alum) and polymers are added. These chemicals have positive ions that attract particles with negative ions (dirt, etc.) and form clumps. Next is the sedimentation process where the heavy solids are removed. Then filtration where the goal is to reduce solids to about .5 microns. And eventually disinfection similar to the disinfection process stated above. Your water utility should have annual water quality reports (consumer confidence reports) you can ask for and ask management or staff to explain the report to you. Some water distribution systems will blend treated surface water with well water. So it's important to know the source of your tap water and what chemical constituents are in it and at what levels. This will impact your Reverse Osmosis unit as well. Reverse osmosis forces water through a semi-permeable membrane and is capable of filtering out just about everything including minerals and chemicals. Without RO, Chlorine will dissipate out of tap water drawn into buckets and left open to atmosphere in 24 hours at those low residual levels. Whew! That reminds me of work. Let's get back to growing grass. Oh, and btw I just bought 5 gallons of distilled water for my hydro system and supplement it with 1 gallon of tap water. We have really hard water and I've been thinking about RO. If you have hard water, you may want to buy a water softener but be careful, the soft water process replaces mineral ions with salt ions which is bad for plants. However, soft water is easier on your RO system which will remove the salt.

 

[dirtyolsouth]

A simple A/B test grow with some clones will tell you if your water has significant issues. If your local water fails the A/B test and clones of the same strain in the same conditions grown with RO or distilled look healthier then look into a longterm alternate source but why bother if the tap water works fine as long as you let it sit and/or bubble for 24+ hours? One test run can give you the peace of mind and it might save you a lot of hassle. I've done this at all my new grow locations over the years and only once did we feel the RO was necessary.

Happy Growing!