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"drinking" water for canna

master shake

master shake

Active member
I just started an organic grow, and I'm not to sure about using the tap water from around here. At walmart and other stores they sell gallon jugs of drinking water, distilled water and nursery water. which of these would be safest for organic soils? I know the distilled water does not have some needed minerals, so is the drinking water or nursery water ok to use? I'm trying to avoid chlorine, I'm using FF happy frog which has some microbes in the soil that could probably die from chlorine.
 
G

Guest

Forget the drinking water,it contains too much sodium.I've never heard of nursery water,does it go waaaaaaaa when you pour it?Distilled water with a skosh of tap for cal and mag or straight distilled with cal-mag plus would be the way to go I think.
 
master shake

master shake

Active member
The American said:
Forget the drinking water,it contains too much sodium.I've never heard of nursery water,does it go waaaaaaaa when you pour it?Distilled water with a skosh of tap for cal and mag or straight distilled with cal-mag plus would be the way to go I think.
Click to expand...
http://www.nurserywater.com/nursery/product.php

"Because we understand that drinking distilled water is extremely important to ensuring your child stays healthy and safe, our product goes through a stringent purification process. The process starts with filtration where impurities are removed. Followed by steam distillation, resulting in a drinking water in its purest form. Next, minerals like fluoride, magnesium, calcium, and potassium are added back to Nursery®, giving the water a pure fresh taste. Finally, micron filtration ensures clarity and product quality. The last step is ozonation which disinfects the water."



this stuff looks ok i guess...it has cal and mag. is the added fluoride ok? it doesnt say how much
 
G

Guest

Evaporate the flouride the same as chlorine from tapwater,24 hours minmum.Syptoms of too much flouride are spotty leaftips and brown margins
 
master shake

master shake

Active member
so should I not use that nursery water then? TA's idea of distilled water mixed with tap or cal-mag sounds ok. if I were to mix with tap water, what would be a good percentage??

thanks guys
 
inflorescence

inflorescence

Active member
Veteran
Optimum levels for flouride in water for plants is 0.14 ppm
That means if there are 1 million water molecules and just 1 flouride ion in that sea of 1 million molecules then there is too much flouride.

Adding flouride back to distilled water for nursery infants to provide them with a safe "human" level of flouride for their teeth will SURELY cause there to be TOO MUCH flouride in that water for plants.

Use RO/distilled with cal mag. like said you can get free cal mag by just adding back a little tap.
The amount of tap you add back just depends on what you want your starting ppms to be. 50, 100, 200 ppm??? The higher the ppm the more cal mag present. What's the perfect number, who knows, I'm still searching for that. I think it's a moving target. :)
 
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guineapig

guineapig

Active member
Veteran
Let's see where to begin....

I am a bit obsessed with this topic i must admit.....all aspects of water quality i find interesting....

Here is a link to my thread "Water Water Everywhere: A Helpful Guide To All Those Different Kinds Of Water"

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=32105&page=1&pp=15&highlight=guineapig+water+thread

My advice is to go get a few gallons of "Spring" water (pH can vary from 6.0 to 7.5 depending on the brand) and use 4/5 spring water to 1/5 tap water. I have found that adding 1/5 or 1/4 tap water to your Spring water helps the overall pH to stabilize and not fluctuate wildly when fertilizers are added. If you are really unsure about your water situation, or if you absolutely cannot measure pH for whatever reason, there is a brand of water called "Sanfaustino" which is a water whose pH is 5.9 and contains a small amount of calcium and magnesium, all-around the best water you can buy imho and i've tried them all.....cannabis plants love this brand of water (its a mineral water in 1 L bottles).....

If you get tired of buying Spring water, you might want to invest in a "Charcoal Filter" unit.....water run through this kind of filtration system is very appropriate for your plants....avoid using pure "Reverse Osmosis" water but if you must use it try 3/4 RO water with 1/4 tap water.....

Some health food stores will have a 5 gallon jug fill-up station where you can choose between R/O water or Charcoal Filtered water......its always nice to find these places.....

Stay away from "Drinking" water and "Distilled" water because their pH readings are way way too basic (like around 8.0).....if you use these kinds of water on your young seedlings you are almost guaranteed to a slow start and your seedlings might show problems very quickly indeed......

I hope this helps, let me know.....

:ying: kind regards from guineapig :ying:
 
FrankRizzo

FrankRizzo

Listen to me jerky
Some manufactures of bottled water use municipal water supply's as a source for their product. I think it would be better to set up some sort of filtration system (RO maybe) rather than use any type of bottled water. Not only would it be a pain the ass over time to use bottled water of any type, that stuff is a unnecessary burden of the environment
 
inflorescence

inflorescence

Active member
Veteran
FrankRizzo said:
Some manufactures of bottled water use municipal water supply's as a source for their product. I think it would be better to set up some sort of filtration system (RO maybe) rather than use any type of bottled water.
Click to expand...

The self-serve machines guineapig is talking about are just big ro units (usually) that intake tap and output ro. You can either buy an ro or use theirs for a fraction of the price ($0.30/gal round here).
 
inflorescence

inflorescence

Active member
Veteran
guineapig said:
Stay away from "Drinking" water and "Distilled" water because their pH readings are way way too basic (like around 8.0)....
Click to expand...

I've always found distilled to be below 7 (sometimes like 5 or 6) because I'm under the impression that 100% pure h20 molecules virtually have no pH (no buffers at all) or a neutral pH of 7 and when exposed to air absorb some co2 which forms carbonic acid and the acid lowers the pH below 7.
Also, apparantly pH meters suck at reading the pH of water molecules only.

Also, Deja Blue carbonates their water even though they say they don't becuase their pH comes in at 5.2, yet with like 5 ppm so it's gotta be carbonic acid so don't use Deja Blue.
 
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bounty29

bounty29

Custom User Title
Veteran
Distilled water is about as pure as you can get. I prefer using it, because you know exactly what you're putting in when you start with 0ppm. I could easily get away with using tap water, I have like 100ppm. But I go shopping at least once a week, and distilled water is like $0.60 a gallon, so why not? I've just got a micro grow, so I don't need much more than a gallon a week. When I switch to hydro and use more water, I'll probably just end up using my tap.
 
master shake

master shake

Active member
guineapig said:
Let's see where to begin....

I am a bit obsessed with this topic i must admit.....all aspects of water quality i find interesting....

Here is a link to my thread "Water Water Everywhere: A Helpful Guide To All Those Different Kinds Of Water"

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=32105&page=1&pp=15&highlight=guineapig+water+thread

My advice is to go get a few gallons of "Spring" water (pH can vary from 6.0 to 7.5 depending on the brand) and use 4/5 spring water to 1/5 tap water. I have found that adding 1/5 or 1/4 tap water to your Spring water helps the overall pH to stabilize and not fluctuate wildly when fertilizers are added. If you are really unsure about your water situation, or if you absolutely cannot measure pH for whatever reason, there is a brand of water called "Sanfaustino" which is a water whose pH is 5.9 and contains a small amount of calcium and magnesium, all-around the best water you can buy imho and i've tried them all.....cannabis plants love this brand of water (its a mineral water in 1 L bottles).....

If you get tired of buying Spring water, you might want to invest in a "Charcoal Filter" unit.....water run through this kind of filtration system is very appropriate for your plants....avoid using pure "Reverse Osmosis" water but if you must use it try 3/4 RO water with 1/4 tap water.....

Some health food stores will have a 5 gallon jug fill-up station where you can choose between R/O water or Charcoal Filtered water......its always nice to find these places.....

Stay away from "Drinking" water and "Distilled" water because their pH readings are way way too basic (like around 8.0).....if you use these kinds of water on your young seedlings you are almost guaranteed to a slow start and your seedlings might show problems very quickly indeed......

I hope this helps, let me know.....

:ying: kind regards from guineapig :ying:
Click to expand...

I have a faucet filter, not sure what's in it exactly, it's this kind
purstore_1960_636391


is that ok to use, does it filter out chlorine/chloramine and other unwanted's?
 
inflorescence

inflorescence

Active member
Veteran
Chlorine's easy to filter out with AC (activated charcoal) but removing chloramine is much more difficult.
Some ro's can't even remove all the chloramine.


....and not a drop to drink. So true. lol
 
master shake

master shake

Active member
inflorescence said:
Chlorine's easy to filter out with AC (activated charcoal) but removing chloramine is much more difficult.
Some ro's can't even remove all the chloramine.


....and not a drop to drink. So true. lol
Click to expand...
so is that pur filter i have AC? I read on their website but couldn't find anything. I did read that it doesn't remove any fluoride, so I'll stop exclusivly using that. I'll call the water company tomorrow and see if they use chlorine or chloramine.

seedlings are only 4 days old. I've just been using water from the filter through a spray bottle and they look amazing for only 4 days, but I'm not gonna take any chances.

so looks like my best bet is to use distilled mixed with tap, or some r/o water. if i get r/o water do i need to add cal-mag or lime?

appreciate the help fellas!
 
bounty29

bounty29

Custom User Title
Veteran
Looks like it's just RO water, you have a PH or ppm meter?

RO and distilled are both less than 5 ppm usually, so you won't have any mystery cal or mag problems, unless you don't add any yourself.
 
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