ro VS tap hydro?

[THINKING GREEN]

Is it true that if I don't use RO water with my twelve bucket ebb and grow system, that I will be fighting my PH the whole damn grow? Also if I do get an RO system should I run a bubbler in the water that I will be using when I do a res change? Or should I run the bubbler in the water that I'm using to feed the Plants? THANKS........

 

[FreezerBoy]

While many here use RO free of pH problems, the reading I've done here suggests that tap is far more pH stable.

 

[!!!]

Tap water has some pH buffering ability compared to RO. It will basically be able to hold pH at a certain level until its buffering capacity is exceeded, but then it will may respond much more quickly to pH changes.

So a drop of pH down in tap might not move the pH. 5 drops might not move it, but then another drop might swing it way down. This is not what you want, but it's less of a problem with tap water because of its greater buffering capacity than other types of water.

 

[unoeye]

I am about to start using RO water can you point me to any links that could be of some good info for me?

Thanks
uno

 

[THINKING GREEN]

sooooooo freezerboy do you use tap or ro water?

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

The Carbonates in Tap water keep the pH high and their buffering action keeps it stable, if you take them out using RO, you have to put them back in again in the form of expensive Cal Mag nad the pH will be less stable. Running part RO is meant to work well, but, even with crap Spanish municipal water, I have never been tempted to go RO. I had a good 30 minute chat with Mr GHE all about RO last year and he said it is a fad best avoided. I had been suckered into the "take out the crap, add in pure food" angle and spent some time looking into it, eventually decided to leave well alone for now. When I have a nice stable "Lab" setup, I may give it a little test, but I would never get a Newbie to run with RO water unless it was totally necessary.

Bubblers can affect pH as the increased Oxygen can feed some bacteria that shit out high pH shit that raises the pH.... so take care and keep a close eye on it all, especially, even more so, with a new system.

I do want an RO unit however, they are meant to be good to use for Ice Hash making and possibly also for Flushing.....

 

[EvilTwin]

Thinking Green,
Everyone has an opinion. What's more important is...what is the hardness level of your tap water? If you're running tap with over 250ppm dissolved solids...you need to consider some way of lowering it. And RO water is the easiest.

I use RO exclusively for growing...Ebb&Flow hydro. Never had any PH problems. My tap was 350ppm and ph8 and created problems with my grow. Those problems resolved with RO use. Read, think, and decide for yourself.
ET

 

[natrone23]

yeah and a RO set up isn't that expensive, I think I've seen around 200$

 

[FreezerBoy]

sooooooo freezerboy do you use tap or ro water?

Tap. I drink it, eat it, cook with it, bathe in it, wash my clothes and bedding in it and brush my teeth in it. Why freak out over growing in it?

My tap has an EC of 0.5 (250 -384PPM). GH has a special hard water formula for water at 0.7 or higher (350 -538ppm and up) If you've got truly gnarly well water, RO can be a godsend. For most, RO is an unnecessary expense that wastes as much water as it uses "solving" a problem that doesn't exist.

What is it about your water that you think is bad?

 

[Sir_Nugget]

deciding whether to use RO water or your tap water means you will have to test your tap water to see what's in it. Some people are lucky, and their tap comes out of the faucet already the perfect pH for plants, and has an ideal amount of nutes. However, other people like me have tapwater with pH 9.0, and the PPm comes out at like 350, making it so you have to add very little nutrients, and pH will swing based on temperature. I have sucesfuly use tap water, but then it stopped working.. If you can get it to work, do it, but if it fails, switch to ro.

the easiest way i know to grow is using 1/4 tspn per galon of maxi nutirients from general hydroponics per gallon of RO water.. top off once with plain ro water, then change

 

[supervaca]

About hard water nutes

About hard water nutes

Freezerboy: I have 260 ppm readings with my tap water; but getting Mg lockout because of too much Ca on it (I assume) ...
Do you say I should consider using GH hardwater? (I currently use GH normal ones).

 

[abuldur]

i also had hardwater problems but using beneficial bacteria seems to do the trick (subculture) it also allows you to grow at higher ph with no problem.
Seems to make all nutrients available at higher ph and keeps it stable to.

peace

 

[KUSHEATER1]

dwc hydro tap is better in my case will buffer nutes to about right nothing else needed

 

[Lazyman]

My well water is about 480ppm, pretty crazy. I still use it (filtered through a TallBoy it comes out at 470ppm) but I almost have to ignore my meters, as 1000PPM on the meter is really only about 500ppm of nutes, the rest is mostly calcium and other trace minerals.

Going RO very shortly for tighter control...

 

[Lazyman]

i also had hardwater problems but using beneficial bacteria seems to do the trick (subculture) it also allows you to grow at higher ph with no problem.
Seems to make all nutrients available at higher ph and keeps it stable to.

peace

The mycorrhizae in Subculture cannot survive if there is more than 30PPM of P in your nutes, which is pretty much all the time. The Subculture dies as soon as its added to anything but plain water, so I stopped wasting money on it.

 

[SKUNK420]

I grow in dwc. I've used tap and r/o and from my experience with my local water source it doesn't matter. Currently I use tap which sucks mainly in my opinion because makes it a little hard to measure my nutrient strength. Depending how fast / strong my plants are growing depends and how the pH shifts. I've done the over night test on two 5 ga. buckets of pHed nutrient water, one with tap and the other r/o, drop in the air stones. 24 hours later they both go up the same even though there was no plants in the buckets. That is why I give the opinion that it depends on your plants etc when it comes to pH stability or shift.

EDIT: my ppms start at 450 @ 0.5 conversion

 

[Uncle Remus]

My tap is 7.5, hardness around 150-ish I think...Not too much Ca, but I rarely if ever get any deficiencies...In fact its pretty damn perfect IMO

Gotta keep your pH at 6.0 for hydro and 6.5-6.8 for soil, no exceptions IMO...Anything higher or lower, regardless of additives, is keeping your plants from optimal nutirent uptake...I did a stress test on a few plants I'm running now...Here's a few picks of what pH being too low can do to a plant in approx 12 days (probably less):

Pics from 11/7:



Pics from 11/19:

 

[daemos]

Lots of great info and advice in this thread.

Thanks!

 

[unoeye]

Very good thread for me, so I am starting a new hydro grow for the first time and I am using RO water and have not picked out a nutrient yet. Do I need to add something extra to my nutes to make them stable in PH? I am thinking of going with the Ionic line and was wondering if I needed to buy something else for it?

Thanks IC

 

[EvilTwin]

Gotta keep your pH at 6.0 for hydro and 6.5-6.8 for soil, no exceptions IMO...Anything higher or lower, regardless of additives, is keeping your plants from optimal nutirent uptake...

Hi Uncle...
I just wanted to add to your statement here. Ph for hydro is generally expressed in a range. 5.4 to 6.2 are the numbers that I use. That's because different nutrients absorb at different ph ranges...so it's best to allow your ph to swing though that range before correcting.

It's also much easier. If you try and pin it down to a specific number...you'll end up chasing your tail and correcting ph twice daily and creating no end of hassle for yourself.
ET