Brita Filters: Do they work?

[Blue Socks]

Does anyone know if these remove enough bad stuff to be useful for our plants? I have really hard water in my current domicile, and I don't want to invest in a full on RO system so has anyone tried the Brita filters that just go on your faucet? If so how did it work for you? I am getting some deformities and burning and I'm 99% sure it's coming from the water supply so I gotta get that fixed ASAP. Thanks for any info

 

[Siomha]

hey BS,

i dont know about brita but if you get a bucket of water and buy you a water pump for 15 € and bubble the water 24 hours and you have good water.
this way you got more water than with brita.

hope this helps, happy growing

 

[Blue Socks]

I live in an older building and I think the pipes are rusty here. Bubbling it will help that? That is a damned good idea though a simple water pump to bubble the water, I should have had one of those already I'm too high don't think sometimes lol. Thanks for the suggestion I'm going to purchase one soon. For a 5 gallon bucket what size pump would you say to get?

 

[Humility]

Sounds like you're aerating your water and getting rid of the chlorine.


This has nothing to do with built up salts.

I'm very curious about whether or not a water filter could lower the PH of water that is bogged with heavy minerals.

 

[GrowbagUK]

I think an aquarium filter pump that circulates water through carbon (for anions) and/or zeolite (for cations) will be more effective.

 

[Illuminate]

brita and other drinking water filters add salt..

 

[homebaked]

I didnt want to go the RO path, I have one for drinking and have been discouraged by it. I dont want the waste as I pay for water. I bought the hydrologic tall boy sediment and dechlorinator. Takes my tap water that is over 350ppm down to 98ppm. I am very happy with the improved flow rate over RO.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

brita and other drinking water filters add salt..

Yep.

Your best bet is an R/O filter with a booster pump. You'll get a higher flow rate and clean/waste water rate. The total ppm will also drop. I'll keep repeating this in R/O threads until people 'get' it and stop repeating R/O b.s. that's wrong.

Bubbling water isn't a pat solution for every situation. It's only really good for getting chlorine out of public water systems. If you're not on a public water system... it's not going to help much and it won't do a thing for contams.


And again.... R/O guarantees that I can go almost ANYWHERE on the planet and not have to change the way I grow or the way I have to think about my water. It's always as close as I need to grow without changing anything I've learned.... ever. (Edit: Unlike most people, I've lived in a LOT of places in the states... water quality is HIGHLY variable)

Stay Safe!

 

[Siomha]

I live in an older building and I think the pipes are rusty here. Bubbling it will help that? That is a damned good idea though a simple water pump to bubble the water, I should have had one of those already I'm too high don't think sometimes lol. Thanks for the suggestion I'm going to purchase one soon. For a 5 gallon bucket what size pump would you say to get?

when your pipes rusty you should let your tap water run for a few minutes before you use the water even for yourself brcause of the bad bacteries-
yes, bubbling water will do it.
i have a little pump for a 5 gallon bucket, it depends how much water you need to buble. the pumps are cheap too.

 

[Blue Socks]

hey BS,

i dont know about brita but if you get a bucket of water and buy you a water pump for 15 € and bubble the water 24 hours and you have good water.
this way you got more water than with brita.

hope this helps, happy growing

Thanks that was a good idea I went with something else though.

I think an aquarium filter pump that circulates water through carbon (for anions) and/or zeolite (for cations) will be more effective.

I almost did that thanks for the idea

brita and other drinking water filters add salt..

I didn't know that thanks! Added salt is definitely not what I want so thanks your post was the biggest reason I didn't go with the Brita.

I didnt want to go the RO path, I have one for drinking and have been discouraged by it. I dont want the waste as I pay for water. I bought the hydrologic tall boy sediment and dechlorinator. Takes my tap water that is over 350ppm down to 98ppm. I am very happy with the improved flow rate over RO.

Thank you sir! I ended up getting this one

http://www.hydrologicsystems.com/products/product.php?id=12&cat_id=35&keywords=Small_Boy

I think that will suit my needs. I hope so at least don't have any more spare cash for something else.

Yep.

Your best bet is an R/O filter with a booster pump. You'll get a higher flow rate and clean/waste water rate. The total ppm will also drop. I'll keep repeating this in R/O threads until people 'get' it and stop repeating R/O b.s. that's wrong.

Bubbling water isn't a pat solution for every situation. It's only really good for getting chlorine out of public water systems. If you're not on a public water system... it's not going to help much and it won't do a thing for contams.


And again.... R/O guarantees that I can go almost ANYWHERE on the planet and not have to change the way I grow or the way I have to think about my water. It's always as close as I need to grow without changing anything I've learned.... ever. (Edit: Unlike most people, I've lived in a LOT of places in the states... water quality is HIGHLY variable)

Stay Safe!

Thanks man yeah a RO system is ideal but I don't have the money for the full on system right now. I got a declorinator so hopefully that will be enough to get me by for now. What do you think about those?

when your pipes rusty you should let your tap water run for a few minutes before you use the water even for yourself brcause of the bad bacteries-
yes, bubbling water will do it.
i have a little pump for a 5 gallon bucket, it depends how much water you need to buble. the pumps are cheap too.

Good idea about letting the water run. I never noticed it tasting funny or having any sediment but the girls sure don't like it! I think I"m going to get a pump to aerate water in a 5 gallon bucket to go with my declorinator I just purchased, what size pump do you use? Thanks!

 

[Iron_Lion]

They might work to remove crap but they will drop Ph a shit load. Mine went from 7.2 to 4.0

 

[fukndenny]

i feed right out the tap chlorine and all, then again, i dont run organics.

what kinda nutes you using?

 

[Blue Socks]

i feed right out the tap chlorine and all, then again, i dont run organics.

what kinda nutes you using?

That's kind of how I narrowed down my problems to the water, I haven't even fed them yet and they're all showing weird burning and leaf deformities. They're planted in a mix of FF ocean forest and happy frog and I have just been giving them ph'ed water so far. This is my second grow in this location, my first one I was having the same problems I'm experiencing now but I just chalked it up to being a bag of bad soil I used. I got the HF and OF new and I'm still seeing the same problems I was encountering before so that leads me to think it's a water issue. Another thing is I have a late start that I have been giving nothing but store bought distilled water and that one is not showing any signs of problems, just the ones that I have been watering with tap water. I got some RO water from the store and I"m going to water with that for the next couple of cycles and I'm betting I"m gonna see them getting better.

For nutes I want to keep it organic, I have some alaska fish fert I'm going to hit them with a couple of times and when flowering starts I think I'm going to try some guano and liquid kelp see how that does.

 

[supermanlives]

zero water is better. and comes with free tds meter. my water is like 265 out of tap. i only use the filtered on seedlings and cloning. otherwise i am organic and dont worry about it. chlorine is bubbled out and cloromine is dealt with either humic acid,vit c, compost. it would cost too much to use these on all your water unless you got a tiny garden.

 

[Blue Socks]

zero water is better. and comes with free tds meter. my water is like 265 out of tap. i only use the filtered on seedlings and cloning. otherwise i am organic and dont worry about it. chlorine is bubbled out and cloromine is dealt with either humic acid,vit c, compost. it would cost too much to use these on all your water unless you got a tiny garden.

What is zero water? My garden is very small comparatively speaking for sure but the water I have is not good. So are you saying adding humic acid and compost etc will counteract whatever is making the problems in my water? Instead of filtering the water I should try that? I'm a little confused by what you're saying sorry

 

[supermanlives]

its a brand superior to brita. i dont think they have a faucet adapter tho. but they might. the have a pitcher and give you a free meter. then you know when to change filter. i signed up online on their site with my water reading and they gave me a shitload of coupons for more filters. good deal in my book.would not be practical for big gardens . but i only use it for seeds and starting clones.i also use it for my coffee and ice cubes. zerowater should be easilly googled.

 

[supermanlives]

ooh ya . chlorine will evaporate away. chloromine wont . humic,organic matter and vit c are supposed to convert it or do something to make it go away. i dont know the science behind it but it works.you wont find much worse tap water than we got here in so cal. thats why i went organic originally.

 

[foomar]

Most public water supplies now use Chloramine as a replacement for the old chlorine system , it has a longer persistance and is cheaper for them.

Chloramine will not be removed by bubbling and can definately damage sensitive plants when in high concentration at certain times of the year , usually the end of a dry summer when they are pumping the dregs and have to add more to keep ecoli down.

Causes a little twisting and mottling of small clones in the bubbler and kills Mrs Foomar,s African Violets and other exotics i cant spell , no problem seen with large clones or established weed in soil.

It may have been the cause of recurring micro def in my old hydro , but not sure.


Should be posssible to download a water quality report and analysis from your supplier , highy detailed ones are readily available here by postcode area at no cost , and reveal some unexpected contaminents.
Milky white and pH 9.5 is apparently of drinking quality to Severn Trent , their solution to plant damage was to suggest i spend serious money on a borehole , and buy a license off them to use it.

If there are any lead pipes still in use , they add phosphate in a process called plumbdosing , not enougth to make any difference to plants but tastes funny.

 

[TLoft13]

brita and other drinking water filters add salt..

For real? I used one of the standalone brita filters in the beginning of my first grow, took my base EC from 0.5 to 0.25. How is this possible?

 

[Hydro-Soil]

EC stands for Electrical Conductivity... not all things conduct electricity.

I'm sure you can figure out the rest, right?

Stay Safe!