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Is Reverse Osmosis necessary?

T

Terppalooza

Well-known member
at what point do you guys suggest to use a reverse osmosis? I run coco. A drain to waste system. used to live in the country side. but now im living in a city. Wondering if its necessary for me to use RO water. What do ya'll think? :tiphat:
 
R

RB56

Active member
Veteran
Terppalooza said:
at what point do you guys suggest to use a reverse osmosis? I run coco. A drain to waste system. used to live in the country side. but now im living in a city. Wondering if its necessary for me to use RO water. What do ya'll think? :tiphat:
Click to expand...
I installed an RO system because my well water fluctuated week to week and I couldn't settle on a stable formula. With city water, you have to be concerned with chlorine and chloramines. added for purification. These can be removed with a filter that can be stand alone or one of the pre-filters in an RO setup.



I'd be happy to have a water source with calcium and magnesium already present, instead of filtering everything out and adding back what I need.
 
GOT_BUD?

GOT_BUD?

Weed is a gateway to gardening
ICMag Donor
Veteran
RO systems are useful in that if you start to have an issue, you can rule out the water as a source of the problem.

Using city water or well water is something you need to consider when diagnosing issues, and usually requires a water test to really help nail down.

For instance, my water coming into my house is 800ppm before it hits my water softener. Afterwards it's 1100. And I'm on city water.

My well water, which I'm only allowed to use on my lawn, is about 1300 ppm and will kill an RO filter in about a month.
 
Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Always, ALWAYS use r/o water (or <14ppm), if your goal is premium smoking cannabis. Cannabis is an accumulator, and anything unused generally ends up in the flowers. Supply cannabis with only what it needs, when it needs it. Tap/well/rain water is a massive variable and mostly poor for quality.

Less than 14ppm water will hydrate what you've carefully set up in the root zone. The pH will react the same way, every time you do the same thing. The advice you give and get will be highly relevant to any other grower using r/o.

This is definitely not so with water above 14ppm. R/o filters produce <14ppm water in nearly any spot on the earth. Learn growing once, and benefit regardless of where you move and not have to re-learn anything.
:tiphat:
 
R

RB56

Active member
Veteran
Amynamous said:
If you can afford it, use RO.
Click to expand...
I sort of agree with this. I like starting at 0 PPM and adding what I want. What's your EC out of the tap? That's probably the deciding factor.


I installed RO for growing but we also it now. I also ran a line directly from the RO unit to the humidifier in the grow. I never have to clean it or fill it and it doesn't deposit minerals on surfaces in the room.
 
Dropped Cat

Dropped Cat

Six Gummi Bears and Some Scotch
Veteran
My EC from unfiltered city tap is 0.16

Filtered is EC 0.01. Single cartridge under sink model.

I add Mg to my nute mix.
 
FunkBomb

FunkBomb

Power Armor rules
Veteran
Have been using tap water for a long time. Would like to use RO but I cant pull it off at the moment. Check out a product called Dechlorinator by Microbe Life Hydroponics. It will knockout the chlorine and chloramines in public water. My yields are up substantially because it allows microbial products (Tribus and Mammoth P) to work hard in your rootzone and not be killed off. This is in coco DTW with synthetic base fertilizers.

-Funk
 
D

Driver 8

Member
Not necessary by a long shot, but if you have to spend money on something it's there for you.

I get by with tap, chlorine and all.

I might be lucky but I don't need to pH at full strength either.

Maybe one day I will buy a bunch of extra stuff to spend money on, but I'm happy at harvest.

Ok, after harvest actually. (Does anyone enjoy trimming?)
 
TychoMonolyth

TychoMonolyth

Boreal Curing
I'm on a well but have an ro tap for the kettle, drinking etc. When i use it for me plants in soul, everything dies. The ro system takes *everything out of the water. There's a lot of minerals in well water to i use plain old 7rh tap water. City water has lots in it too.
 
knuckles

knuckles

Active member
Veteran
If your water source is hard (over 300ppm) yes you should use r/o water,I cut the r/o with municipal water to 150ppm(.3 e.c.) then add my nutrients..
 
gr866

gr866

Active member
Veteran
RO needs to be treated prior to mixing nutes.
My city water sucks and I spoke with Canna USA and was told to add city water to bring the ppm to 120.
At first I used CaliMagic and Epsom to bring it to my RO up in ppm.
Less is More and since I run my A&B at around 40% of recommended rate, I use CaliMagic and Epsom to give me the Cal/Mag I am missing by not using full nutes as recommended by the supplier.
This had worked well for me.
 
C

capnCõno

Member
It all depends on ya what ya water is to start but Honest answer is yes get an ro... with the ro u don't have to worry bout what's in it .. eliminates a lot of factors and gives the plants exactly what they need no ?s fluctuations or questioning how much cal mag u need... can u grow without ro yea maybe sure but with it life and plants will me much better off especially coco hydro . Soil allows much more play with ya starting point n ph
 
Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
It really comes down to what quality cannabis you're intending to grow.

Superior Quality? You're going to want to know exactly what is in your water, and you'll want to remove anything cannabis does not convert to plant products.

Poundage for Sale? Anything 150ppm or less is going to pass the average user test. I figure 90% of the planet has yet to experience quality cannabis anyway, and 50% of the population has an 'average' or lower ability to taste and smell. This leaves a huge margin of error for the 'marginal' quality cannabis. (haha)

Not knowing what quality cannabis is like makes for a lot of misinformation in the community. Some of the more glaring representations are...

- Drying your cannabis bone dry for storage does not hurt the quality
- Water quality is less of a concern than pH/ppm
- The history of the soil you're growing in does not matter
- Boveda/Silica-Gel packs do not affect cannabis
- Hot/Wet grows great cannabis
- You can flush out overfeeding

and on, and on, and on.
I'll get off my soapbox now, because it gets old after a while. Let's just say I want more growers to work on widening their awareness about cannabis quality. Sharing a bowl of your cannabis with me shouldn't hurt my lungs. The description of my experience from smoking it should not hurt your feelings. ;)
 
T

Terppalooza

Well-known member
TychoMonolyth said:
I'm on a well but have an ro tap for the kettle, drinking etc. When i use it for me plants in soul, everything dies. The ro system takes *everything out of the water. There's a lot of minerals in well water to i use plain old 7rh tap water. City water has lots in it too.
Click to expand...

This is also kind of my worry. That if I do get an RO system, it would be nothing but more of a hassle. Also I'd probably only end up using it for the last 3-4 days of flush :laughing: But if enough good growers in this thread say they couldn't live without. id definitely try it out.
 
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