RO Water

[fiveonit]

My RO Filter cleans the tap water so the ppm is around 520ppm from 1200ppm. Is that safe to use in my reservoir or should I buy distilled water?
I've been using distilled and bottle water until now.
I added about 5 litre now to the 20 litre I have and everything seems fine so far. Should I look for any symptoms on the leaves or 520 ppm is ok?

 

[FlaDankster]

I don't think i would even drink that stuff let alone give it to my plants.

Your starting ppms are 1200??

And 520 coming out of the RO unit??


Crazy.

 

[Pangea]

What RO unit are you using? That is not a very effective result for RO, you may need to pretreat and/or boost your feed water.

 

[fiveonit]

yeah 490 now but the plants look fine im using aeroponic so I should see any effects within a day or so. used it now 3 days and not much diferent but I think i will go back to only using distilled water to be on the safe side

 

[fiveonit]

aquario pure is the name of it it had one filter I had to open n put inside and 3 big cylinders where the water goes through

 

[IGROWMYOWN]

five when you say 1200ppm right out the tap is that a Typo o? that's the highest I've seen posted on any forum for tap a guy had 750 I thought that was insane LA tap water is horrible 378ppm. hydrologic 200 will get you 0 ppm water but be warned a ton of waste water even with that adapter piece they offer.

 

[fiveonit]

no I get 110 * 10 on my EC meter so about 1200ppm 1100 now today.

 

[ssq.talker]

if plants dont complain its fine. Its 0,75 EC, so fine. Just watch out with ferts.

 

[ssq.talker]

or you just misread your ec meter

 

[fiveonit]

thx for the nfo yeah I have a look on them I also have a few seedlings outdoors that are about 2 weeks old which have gotten a mix of ro water with distilled and rooting fuse nuts 340ppm with the nuts on those and they look fine

 

[Bennyweed1]

dude, 1200 ppm. WHere the hell do you live?! That is so insane, lake water is not even that high. Its as if shit is being added.

 

[fiveonit]

south europe mediteranean

 

[fiveonit]

I went back to bottle water and distilled water now for my aeroponic reservoir. I think the hydroponic sys I have is more sensitive to water. I don't want to risk anything with that. the outside plants however I will mix this RO water with distilled water as ive done in the past weeks. thanks everyone for all the help

 

[RB56]

aquario pure is the name of it it had one filter I had to open n put inside and 3 big cylinders where the water goes through

Should be 2 filters and an RO membrane. Are you running two of those cylinders empty?

 

[Coconutz]

Is there a water softener in the building?

 

[saluki]

I use water from desalination plant in soil, works out fine. Something like 750 ppm, treated seawater my ass. We don't drink it. I think you possibly need to up the Pressure on the feed for your RO like someone said above. If I remember correctly when I installed one it should be from 55-75 PSI. Obv it differs from unit to unit, but something doesn't sound right. Your PPM shouldn't be that high using RO filter.

 

[fiveonit]

RB56: It has one membrane filter the other two cylinders wasnt open able hmm

Coconutz: not that I know of ?

Like someone said maybe the pressure is not enough on this dam thing. It's connected to the cold water output next to the toilet.

 

[Pangea]

Feed pressure and temp should increase flow not decrease TDS. I would guess your ro membrane is fucked up because of scale, you should be softening it with salts or antiscalant acid before you RO it.

The two other housings and filters are probably sediment and carbon.

 

[Me2]

With the low water requirements of aero it might not be worth the effort of treating the water. Another option is collecting rainwater, sterilise with chlorine and fire it through the ro system with a booster pump. The RO membrane will last a lot longer.

 

[Pangea]

Dont use chlorinated water with RO unless you prefilter it very well. If you can survive off of rain water a simple sediment filter will work with out the need to RO.(Rain water is better than RO)