I would suggest getting a larger than 50gpd unit, you'll be surprised how useful it is. Everyone in my house drinks r/o including the animals, we cook with it and I find other uses where clean water is preferred over >14ppm water.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 flushBut if enough good growers in this thread say they couldn't live without. id definitely try it out.
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.![]()
I would suggest getting a larger than 50gpd unit, you'll be surprised how useful it is. Everyone in my house drinks r/o including the animals, we cook with it and I find other uses where clean water is preferred over >14ppm water.
If your plan is to only use r/o the last 3-4 days, I'd skip it entirely, because it really won't matter at all. Kinda like spraying a dirty wall with a little spray bottle. That soil is caked on and won't be coming off with even a high pressure hose.![]()
Unless your tap water is under 14ppm all the time, 100% R/O, all the way through till harvest. When the tap water is up around 150ppm or more, I can accurately pass the pepsi test (blindfolded) and sort 100% r/o grown/flushed, vs. Tap water grown, r/o flushed, vs. tap water grown/flushed flowers by smoking samples. Same room, all the same strain, same pH levels, only difference was starting water.just saw this reply. well concidering my tap water is resonably clean. waht woudl be the minimum ammount of time you use RO water? or simply always. or nothing in your opinion? ill probaly be comparing it to see myself in the future myself aswell![]()
With water that hard (.7 EC ) that faucet filter wont do much . Your best bet would be a cheap 50GPD 5 stage RO system.
This is an overfeeding issue, which has nothing to do with r/o. Water is a solvent, and without additional elements with it (as in tap/well water) there isn't anything to 'change/affect' pH with.Something i forgot to mention that alot of RO growers dont know is that RO water is a poor choice to grow plants because it lacks needed mineralization namely alkalinity. you need to add alkalinity or else your ph in the medium will decrease over time causing issues.
This is an overfeeding issue, which has nothing to do with r/o. Water is a solvent, and without additional elements with it (as in tap/well water) there isn't anything to 'change/affect' pH with.![]()
I would suggest getting a larger than 50gpd unit, you'll be surprised how useful it is. Everyone in my house drinks r/o including the animals, we cook with it and I find other uses where clean water is preferred over >14ppm water.
If your plan is to only use r/o the last 3-4 days, I'd skip it entirely, because it really won't matter at all. Kinda like spraying a dirty wall with a little spray bottle. That soil is caked on and won't be coming off with even a high pressure hose.![]()
More correctly, it's an 'excess nutrients in the root zone' issue.It is not an overfeeding issue.
You are not understanding what i am saying lol. You are confusing alkaline with alkalinity .They are not the same thing. The buffering capacity (alkalinity) will determine how much acid you will need to ph your reservoir,after ph'ing the res the residual alkalinity that is left behind will have a big impact on the ph in your medium over time.. Here is an article that will explain it better.More correctly, it's an 'excess nutrients in the root zone' issue.
r/o water does not have alkalinity, it also does not have acidity, it is completely neutral. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE for r/o to change pH in any significant way except through the dilution rate. When unused nutrients are left behind they drop the pH in the media. Read my thread on using a full pH swing, it explains this process in detail.
It is extremely important to monitor the fertilization management when using water with low alkalinity (<40 ppm CaCO3) to water plants. Water with low alkalinity has a limited buffering capacity; therefore, the application of potentially acidic fertilizers can have a huge impact on the pH of the growing medium. In this case, potentially acidic fertilizers can drop growing medium pH to unacceptable levels. The same principle applies to reverse osmosis (RO) water since the alkalinity of the treated water can be extremely low.