[BurnOne]

Just a word of caution for you organic heads out there...
If you are tapped onto a municipal water supply that uses chlorine to kill bacteria in the water, it'll do the same thing to the bacteria (microherd) in your organic food source.
Always bubble your water in an open container (5 gallon bucket) for 24 hours before adding ANYTHING organic to it.

Burn1

or you can just cough up the .70 cents it costs for a gallon of distilled water.

[BurnOne]

^^^True. But expensive. My little 5' X 5' growroom sometimes took 5 gallons of water twice a week. Figure in gas money and it adds up.
The thing I'm trying to show here is that chlorine is bad for any type of organic growing because it kills bacteria.
Burn1

[Suby]

True Dat.
24hrs of bubbling keeps the micros alive

So what do you use to bubble the water?

[NoNameNoshame]

Let the city water site over night...clorine will vap off...

[sproutco]

Chlorine is not bad. Plants actually require a small amount of chlorine to grow. One good thing chlorine does is in the Hill reaction where plants actually split water. Anothe role of chlorine is the opening of the stomates or pores of the plant. What would be bad for your bacteria herd or whatever would be "free" chlorine because it is charged different and is an oxidizer. The quantity of "free" chlorine in city water is quite low. It many only be .5 parts per million. The water may still have pathogens in it although very few. If the water treatment plant increased chlorine for the water to kill all pathogens it would be offensive like a swimming pool. Free chlorine will attack organic matter before it kills anything. Once it does it is "used up" and harmless. If you are an organic gardener the demand (term used in water treatment for how much free chlorine is required to sterilize the water) in your water would be extreme because of all the organic matter in the water in your tea. The chlorine would be rendered harmless in quite a hurry with 99.99% of your bacteria still alive. I don't think city water is that big a deal.

[PazVerdeRadical]

i think watering with distilled water is not so good since distilled water has poor electrical conductivity and actually ends up limiting the creation of new good life in the soil, it can also lead to a nutrient lock-out. distilled water is not even real water

i always let the tap water i use to water seat on a big bucket, it gets direct sun-light too, which always helps with the water quality.

sproutco, that's pretty interesting to say the least. ty for sharing.

peace.

[BurnOne]

I use well water (no chlorine). I still like to bubble it for a while before adding organics to dissolve oxygen into it. Oxygen is life.
Burn1

[Suby]

Originally Posted by tokinafaty420

So what do you use to bubble the water?

I use a fishtank airpump with an airstone attached and toss that in my 5 gallon pail full of water, 24hrs later I add tea ingredients.

I heard some places use something called chloramine (spell?) to sanitize city water, apparently bubbling does nothing to evap it, only direct sunlight will degrade it.

Sub's