Using water from a pond - or tap water? And what instrumentation?

[flylowgethigh]

I have a pond that only gets water from rain runoff on my grass. It has fish, and I treat it with enzymes...

https://www.greatlakesbiosystems.com/products/orb-3-lake-pond-enzymes?variant=6896880844844

And also for bacteria...

https://www.greatlakesbiosystems.co...ts/orb-3-sludge-pellets?variant=6898937692204

The Ph is around 6.5, alkalinity is around 40. Phosphates (I forgot, will check again). This is from pool test strips.

The pond has a healthy algae bloom, even now. This is desirable for fish, but I don't know about plants.



Should I try to use this pond water, or the stuff from the tap?

I can put a carbon filter in the water supply line to the house, where the particulate filter element is. If the water needs treating, it can be done in 4 gallon carboy batches. Easy, and I don't need to fetch water.



Yup, pond water is too much work, and I can't risk screwing up. The pond water is for soil-building experimentation. Possibly supplement the tap water sometimes.

 

[flylowgethigh]

.

 

[Bud Green]

I don't know about using it indoors... Is it possible you might bring pests (mites and others) into your room..?

But for outdoor grows it is perfect...

I collect rainwater runoff in a similar way.. About 300 feet away and 10 feet up hill from my hideout..

With pipe and hose, I get it to the hideout and aerate it by letting it splash into a 30 gallon tub..
Because my rainwater is slightly acidic, (5.5 pH) I add a measured amount of wood ashes to the tub to bring the pH up to 6.5 to 7..

The wood ashes are also adding calcium and potassium to my girls with every watering session..

..

 

[big315smooth]

run the tap. do know some bacteria bad for soil but some is good. had anaerobic issue before with organic messed my shit up

 

[flylowgethigh]

Tap it is.

I will get a couple jugs of the pond water and let it sit and see what happens in the jug. When the meters and PH adjuster shows up, that will be something to play with.

Gardens like H2O2, it is in rainwater. Do people add H2O2 to their water reservoir, or is the air bubbler good enough?

Wood ash to raise Ph? I like it! I am surprised there is no mention of carbon (charcoal or ash) in the soil recipes posted here. Burn grass and it comes back greener than ever. Terps and THC are carbon based, so the carbon has to come from somewhere.

CO2, I know.

 

[flylowgethigh]

The ponds (big, small) ec is .050 / .065, and Ph 7.3 / 7.4 - per cheap meters. I put out a lot of lime recently. I think when the mood hits me I will use the little pond water in the reservoirs. The city tap water (which is the easy and clean source) is 7.8 (comes from limestone caverns), ec is 0.150. I ordered Bluelab Ph and EC stuff, cause no way is a $17 pair of pens worth using, while playing for keeps. Bluelab truncheon EC starts at 0.400, and reads zero with my water.