Do I really need an RO water system?

[Seaweed Farms]

So I'm wanting to switch from organic soil to hydro in coco. I need to know if I really need to invest in a RO water system. How high can my tap water ppm be until I need one?

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[Croatsan]

Hi Seaweed Farms

I always use tap water. Never had any problems. Just let it sit for a day or two for the Chlorine to evaporate. RO water is one more complication and requires adding even more stuff in your res (Cal-Mag comes to mind). I prefer to keep things as simple as possible and not to pamper my plants too much. They're not Black Orchids. They're weed. More variables in your grow, higher the chances that something might go wrong.

Your tap water ppm is of little importance. Tap water pH is also not important because you will lower it later with pH down. You just add 50% of your water ppm when you mix your res. Not 100% because some of that ppm is Calcium, which brings me to the question: Why would you want to extract it first with Reverse Osmosis, only to add it later in form of a costly additive?

In other words, if your target is 500ppm in your res, and your tap water is 200ppm, you can aim for 600ppm.

As for Magnesium, still mineral water with extra Mg works great. I kid you not. I add five liters in my 40 liters res. It's cheap and effective.

Best.

 

[Seaweed Farms]

Hi Seaweed Farms

I always use tap water. Never had any problems. Just let it sit for a day or two for the Chlorine to evaporate. RO water is one more complication and requires adding even more stuff in your res (Cal-Mag comes to mind). I prefer to keep things as simple as possible and not to pamper my plants too much. They're not Black Orchids. They're weed. More variables in your grow, higher the chances that something might go wrong.

Your tap water ppm is of little importance. Tap water pH is also not important because you will lower it later with pH down. You just add 50% of your water ppm when you mix your res. Not 100% because some of that ppm is Calcium, which brings me to the question: Why would you want to extract it first with Reverse Osmosis, only to add it later in form of a costly additive?

In other words, if your target is 500ppm in your res, and your tap water is 200ppm, you can aim for 600ppm.

As for Magnesium, still mineral water with extra Mg works great. I kid you not. I add five liters in my 40 liters res. It's cheap and effective.

Best.

Thank you for the in-depth answer. I don't know whether my tap water is hard or not, I can say I don't have a water softener. I don't live in the SW where hard water is a factor though. Basically I'm just really worried about having too much build up on the roots. My plan was to just go with GH 3 part in coco. I've heard that calmag is good to use because coco has neither cal or mag, which leads me to think that my water would have those two micronutes.

Thing is I read somewhere that the calcium and mag in your water is not in a state in which plants can absorb it, leading to build up. This is mainly my concern.

I like the idea of using RO water because you can completely control everything that goes into your feedings, but like you said it adds a variable to growing.

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[Croatsan]

I've heard that calmag is good to use because coco has neither cal or mag, which leads me to think that my water would have those two micronutes.

I grow DWC, roots go straight into the water with nutes.

Thing is I read somewhere that the calcium and mag in your water is not in a state in which plants can absorb it, leading to build up. This is mainly my concern.

I'm sure you did. But my ladies seem to enjoy it. No Cal/Mag defficiencies so far (knock on wood)

You know what is the first step in order to sell a product? To create the need for it.

I like the idea of using RO water because you can completely control everything that goes into your feedings, but like you said it adds a variable to growing.

That's not really control, if you ask me. It's the illusion of control. More stuff you put in, less command you have. You think you're in charge but once things get out of hand, it becomes difficult to pinpoint a culprit.

 

[Seaweed Farms]

I grow DWC, roots go straight into the water with nutes.



I'm sure you did. But my ladies seem to enjoy it. No Cal/Mag defficiencies so far (knock on wood)

You know what is the first step in order to sell a product? To create the need for it.



That's not really control, if you ask me. It's the illusion of control. More stuff you put in, less command you have. You think you're in charge but once things get out of hand, it becomes difficult to pinpoint a culprit.

Haha yeah you're right, creating a need for something will help you sell more of it.

Well it's good to hear that hydro growers are having success with two water.

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[Croatsan]

A friend of mine is an RO convert

After he'd seen my last (and first) hydro with tap water he started using it and never looked back.

 

[Seaweed Farms]

A friend of mine is an RO convert

After he'd seen my last (and first) hydro with tap water he started using it and never looked back.

Where are you located regionally?

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[Croatsan]

I'm in Croatia, the most recent addition to Europe

 

[Spitz]

I tried tap and GH 3 part. I have pretty good water here. The only catch is I deal with chloramine instead of chlorine. Letting my water sit does little for me along those lines. I didn't add CaMg but I did go a bit heavy on Micro and lighter on Grow. The Micro has significant Nitrogen. I think the key to your success will be watering/feeding to runoff and diligence to correct PH. Good luck!

 

[fanleaf]

Hi Seaweed Farms

I always use tap water. Never had any problems. Just let it sit for a day or two for the Chlorine to evaporate. RO water is one more complication and requires adding even more stuff in your res (Cal-Mag comes to mind). I prefer to keep things as simple as possible and not to pamper my plants too much. They're not Black Orchids. They're weed. More variables in your grow, higher the chances that something might go wrong.

Your tap water ppm is of little importance. Tap water pH is also not important because you will lower it later with pH down. You just add 50% of your water ppm when you mix your res. Not 100% because some of that ppm is Calcium, which brings me to the question: Why would you want to extract it first with Reverse Osmosis, only to add it later in form of a costly additive?

In other words, if your target is 500ppm in your res, and your tap water is 200ppm, you can aim for 600ppm.

As for Magnesium, still mineral water with extra Mg works great. I kid you not. I add five liters in my 40 liters res. It's cheap and effective.

Best.

Let me start by saying that I always see your responses to people asking for help and just by the way you talk to people I like your style man. I always think you are spot on. That being said, I have to add a bit of complexity to your answer and say just because you always use tap water don't mean he can.

For instance. My tap water has a ppm of about 440ppm if I remember right. When I ran my tap water I had nothing but issues that took a while to figure out. I let it sit and bubble to get rid of Chlorine so why won't it work? My tap water comes out at a pH of 7.9. No biggie right? Just add nutes and pH down to 6.5 or so for my soil grow..sound good so far? Well doing so caused me so many pH issues I had to fight all the way through.
Finally one day I rid a bunch of tap water of Chlorine for my water change for my 55 gallon fish tank. Water sat and pH'ed at 7.9 like always. So I added pH down to 6.8 for my tank. Added it until it hit 6.8. Well, I walked away for a few hours and came back to put the water in the tank so I figured I would test it again to be sure. Guess what? It went straight back to 7.9. I was confused so I added more pH down to 6.8 again. After 6 hours of sitting it was straight back to 7.9. This happened 3 more times to the same water. Until my whole bottle of pH down was gone. It was a new bottle with about 4oz in it and sold at the pet shop. So I went to the garage and grabbed a quart of strong Hydrochloric acid. Well that's some strong stuff so it only took a bit to get down to 6.8 again. Had to dose with that 2 more times and finally my pH stayed there at 6.8. This ended up being over the coarse of a few days.
I'm not sure what kind of buffers are in my tap water that makes it so freaking stubborn to change but that is no fun. I then knew that while I pH'ed for my grow the buffers were taking back over in short order and f'ing stuff up big time.

Added a small RO unit and never had an issue since.

 

[inkrick]

Hi Seaweed Farms

I always use tap water. Never had any problems. Just let it sit for a day or two for the Chlorine to evaporate. RO water is one more complication and requires adding even more stuff in your res (Cal-Mag comes to mind). I prefer to keep things as simple as possible and not to pamper my plants too much. They're not Black Orchids. They're weed. More variables in your grow, higher the chances that something might go wrong.

Your tap water ppm is of little importance. Tap water pH is also not important because you will lower it later with pH down. You just add 50% of your water ppm when you mix your res. Not 100% because some of that ppm is Calcium, which brings me to the question: Why would you want to extract it first with Reverse Osmosis, only to add it later in form of a costly additive?

In other words, if your target is 500ppm in your res, and your tap water is 200ppm, you can aim for 600ppm.

As for Magnesium, still mineral water with extra Mg works great. I kid you not. I add five liters in my 40 liters res. It's cheap and effective.

Best.

What about rain water should I be adding cal mag?


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[Croatsan]

Let me start by saying that I always see your responses to people asking for help and just by the way you talk to people I like your style man. I always think you are spot on. That being said, I have to add a bit of complexity to your answer and say just because you always use tap water don't mean he can.

Thank you for your kind words. Of course it doesn't mean that he can use it. But, as in your case, that would be more of an exception than a rule.

For instance. My tap water has a ppm of about 440ppm if I remember right. When I ran my tap water I had nothing but issues that took a while to figure out. I let it sit and bubble to get rid of Chlorine so why won't it work?

440ppm is a lot. I don't consider it to be the average. It's extreme. The ppm of my tap water is 180. My pH is rock steady at 6.0 - so much so that I'm doing ph swings manually from 5-6.5, sometimes even 7.

By "it won't work" you probably mean your ppm is not coming down. To get rid of Chlorine, your water must be exposed to direct sunlight, because it's the UV rays that break chlorine. You can bubble it until the cows come home if you bubble in the shade

Besides, Chlorine is not the only element in tap water that adds ppm. There are many others. And majority of those are impossible to neutralize. If that is the case then, of course, RO water might be the only solution.

But, as I've said before, these examples are more of an exception than the rule. I have yet to see 440 ppm water. It doesn't exist here.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just fortunate to have good quality water.

 

[Croatsan]

What about rain water should I be adding cal mag?

Rain water has, usually, high Ca & Mg content. But not all rain water is the same. It depends a lot on the atmosphere and the air pollutants.

 

[inkrick]

Nice things seem to be working so I'm not goin to stuff with it .


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[Jimmycricket]

If you need RO water entirely depends on the water you have from tap and what your end goals are for your water.

 

[Seaweed Farms]

Let me start by saying that I always see your responses to people asking for help and just by the way you talk to people I like your style man. I always think you are spot on. That being said, I have to add a bit of complexity to your answer and say just because you always use tap water don't mean he can.

For instance. My tap water has a ppm of about 440ppm if I remember right. When I ran my tap water I had nothing but issues that took a while to figure out. I let it sit and bubble to get rid of Chlorine so why won't it work? My tap water comes out at a pH of 7.9. No biggie right? Just add nutes and pH down to 6.5 or so for my soil grow..sound good so far? Well doing so caused me so many pH issues I had to fight all the way through.
Finally one day I rid a bunch of tap water of Chlorine for my water change for my 55 gallon fish tank. Water sat and pH'ed at 7.9 like always. So I added pH down to 6.8 for my tank. Added it until it hit 6.8. Well, I walked away for a few hours and came back to put the water in the tank so I figured I would test it again to be sure. Guess what? It went straight back to 7.9. I was confused so I added more pH down to 6.8 again. After 6 hours of sitting it was straight back to 7.9. This happened 3 more times to the same water. Until my whole bottle of pH down was gone. It was a new bottle with about 4oz in it and sold at the pet shop. So I went to the garage and grabbed a quart of strong Hydrochloric acid. Well that's some strong stuff so it only took a bit to get down to 6.8 again. Had to dose with that 2 more times and finally my pH stayed there at 6.8. This ended up being over the coarse of a few days.
I'm not sure what kind of buffers are in my tap water that makes it so freaking stubborn to change but that is no fun. I then knew that while I pH'ed for my grow the buffers were taking back over in short order and f'ing stuff up big time.

Added a small RO unit and never had an issue since.

I'm well aware that it depends on where my tap water's ppm is at normally. If I had a ppm of over 300 coming out of my tap I would probably grit my teeth and get a RO system.

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[Jimmycricket]

One good thing about RO water is reducing the salt in your water.

 

[Seaweed Farms]

One good thing about RO water is reducing the salt in your water.

Indeed, sir.

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