Using pure rain water for DWC questions.

#1cheesebuds

Well-known member

Veteran

• May 14, 2019

• #1

Can i use pure collected rain water in DWC buckets thst are on the snsller side. If so i assume I would still be feeding grow food and Bloom food along with the rain water. Any advice before I accidentally kill a clone by trying it would be much appreciated.

 

Hydro8

Member

• May 15, 2019

• #2

I would worry about micro contaminants. What ever you collect the water on will get covered in wild spores and other contaminants.

Usually the plants are most susceptible to disease and funk when they are small and not yet established. When they are established in DWC they are pretty strong and would handle unclean water much better.

 

negative37dBA

Well-known member

Veteran

• May 15, 2019

• #3

Use R/O water. You are only asking for problems from the unknowns that come from rainwater.
peace, negative.

 

N

Nifty_PoT

Active member

• May 15, 2019

• #4

How clean is the water ? what ppm? Is your roof/catching surface clean?

I have used rain water with great success. The water is around 30-60 ppm or less if you keep your roof clean. You can add a bit of bleach if you want to kill any possible pathogens if that is a concern.
Something i have found is that because of the really low to no alkalinity in rainwater it helps to boost the residual alkalinity in final feed to about 20ppm to buffer against ph drop in your medium.

 

CoCo_LoCo

Active member

• May 15, 2019

• #5

I would suggest adding chlorine to kill everything. Then let water stand exposed to the open air so the chlorine can dissipate.

Or bleach like nifty said.

I used rain water for DTW so all i did was filter it through an oil filter to remove any particulate. But I would mix the days feed daily so the water never stood.

DWC I can imagine you will possibly have issues if you dont treat it at all.

 

#1cheesebuds

Well-known member

Veteran

• May 16, 2019

• #6

i collected the water in a new clean 5 gallon bucket that i set out in the open sky.

 

N

Nifty_PoT

Active member

• May 16, 2019

• #7

That should be pretty clean then, but how much volume can you get like that,enough? Do you have an ppm /ec meter to test it ?

 

wvkindbud38

Elite Growers Club

Veteran

• May 16, 2019

• #8

I use water outta a spring that comes outta the mtns, which I guess is essentially rain water and everything always comes out good. It's either that or our horrible well water that we don't even drink. I could probably get a RO system but seems the water outta the spring does fine for me

 

Frogger

Active member

• Jan 28, 2020

• #9

I don’t know if they’re waterproof or not but they’re definitely the right color https://www.craftsman.com/products/...de&utm_content=paid_storage+containers_video_