fireboytommy7
New Member
Hey guys, I have been having a lot of problems with one of my plants and I realized that my water was wayyy too hard but I didn't know. So I just wanna give out some advice to those guys who are trying to maintain their budget but wanna do a basic check on water hardness.
Tap water w/ PUR stage 3 filter (no good if normally water too hard) on the LEFT
Purified bottled water on the RIGHT
Basically you take about 1/2 cup of your sample water, and put it in a flat pot like so. You heat it for a couple of minutes to boil away the water, and then you can see (try to swish it around the end to spread it out) how hard your water is. try to keep the temps low in order to avoid damage to your pans. The flatter the better and with the coating is better as well. This is my tap water on the left with a PUR 3 stage water filter...obviously it didnt work too well. On the right is your basic bottled "purified" water. These have minerals added for taste that isn't too good if you really wanna set the balance of your nutrients right, but it will do.
The best solution I think is first go buy the water they have at the supermarkets for about 30 cents a gallon. It undergoes 20 micron filtering, Reverse Osmosis, Carbon filtering, UV filter and some other goodness. The water is sterile, very pure (Reverse Osmosis) and mixes very well with nutrients. It is much cheaper than distilled water and has VERY little minerals. When I boiled it down it had practically nothing, so thats why I didn't even bother to put a picture. If you have big 5 gallon tanks they are good to take. However if your grow is huge then you might wanna just install a home reverse osmosis system. Once I get my ppm/EC meter I'll check and give ya guys updates. However, I just wanna say that this is the first time when I mixed my nutrient solution I didn't have to adjust the pH cuz it put it right on the dot wit the nutrients. (GH Flora NOVA Grow, cannazym, liquid seaweed)
Hope that helps ya out!!
Tap water w/ PUR stage 3 filter (no good if normally water too hard) on the LEFT
Purified bottled water on the RIGHT
Basically you take about 1/2 cup of your sample water, and put it in a flat pot like so. You heat it for a couple of minutes to boil away the water, and then you can see (try to swish it around the end to spread it out) how hard your water is. try to keep the temps low in order to avoid damage to your pans. The flatter the better and with the coating is better as well. This is my tap water on the left with a PUR 3 stage water filter...obviously it didnt work too well. On the right is your basic bottled "purified" water. These have minerals added for taste that isn't too good if you really wanna set the balance of your nutrients right, but it will do.
The best solution I think is first go buy the water they have at the supermarkets for about 30 cents a gallon. It undergoes 20 micron filtering, Reverse Osmosis, Carbon filtering, UV filter and some other goodness. The water is sterile, very pure (Reverse Osmosis) and mixes very well with nutrients. It is much cheaper than distilled water and has VERY little minerals. When I boiled it down it had practically nothing, so thats why I didn't even bother to put a picture. If you have big 5 gallon tanks they are good to take. However if your grow is huge then you might wanna just install a home reverse osmosis system. Once I get my ppm/EC meter I'll check and give ya guys updates. However, I just wanna say that this is the first time when I mixed my nutrient solution I didn't have to adjust the pH cuz it put it right on the dot wit the nutrients. (GH Flora NOVA Grow, cannazym, liquid seaweed)
Hope that helps ya out!!
