Watering question

[Zayah]

I have well water and was told it’s prob not
The best when it comes to using it to watering my plants but was also told distilled water wasn’t good either. So which is best, well water ph’d down to the correct ph or distilled water ?

 

[013]

Well water would be my preference- distilled water has been converted to steam then allowed to condense back to water but it strips the minerals

 

[Nunyabiz]

Well water unless you're within 2 miles of a fracking well or other weird things that can taint the water

 

[6thsense]

Ive user well water for 2 grows and had no problems other then having to ph up

 

[Rexer]

Have you gotten a water test done on your Well?

What's the current TDS? (Total dissolved solids).

I'm assuming you're drinking well water? Any treatments done on It before it hits the tap?

Edit- shoulda added, well water Should be fine, but depending on geography of where you live (I.e. close to farms, other industries nearby, etc) can impact water content (as in you might have more sulfur or iron, etc).

 

[Zayah]

The tds is atleast 100 and ph is atleast 8. Ours gets a softener before it hits the tap but I have drank it from the house before numerous times. I’m just more of less worries about the ph being to high cuz I have used it before and it blocked everything out right away. I knew right away I gave them the wrong water. I could ph it down but dang does that use a lot of ph down. When I add all my nutes it brings it down for me. Our well is over 300ft down if that makes a difference.

 

[Rickstertp]

pH of 8 is not too bad for a well. Our well was 5.5 so we had to have a whole house pH buffering system put in that uses calcite that brings it back up to the mid 7 range. I use that directly with a little bit of citric acid crystals added to my nutes to bring the pH in line. Doesn't take much. If your softener uses salt then I might be hesitant to use it on the plants. I don't worry about the pH before adding nutes. If adding your nutrients brings the pH down to range then don't worry about it. I would worry more about sodium levels, but I don't know much about modern water softeners. Ours back in the 70's put a lot of sodium in the water.

 

[TorturedSoul]

If your softener uses salt then I might be hesitant to use it on the plants.

^THIS^ Do not use water, that has been run through a water softener, for your plants. Try not to drink it, either.

 

[Zayah]

So I found out we haven’t even been having a softer put in due to no electricity in the well house so it’s just been coming straight out of the well with nothing added and it’s been at least a year since we had been adding any softener. I haven’t died from drinking it or gotten sick and I have a habit of drinking from the hose, I just know the pH is high and without adding any nutrients it stays high and if I want to lower it without that I have to use a lot of pH down. They have shown no signs of distress when I use that water to feed them but given on its own it causes the plant to twist its leaves.

Would a high pH cause nutrient lockout in soil ? I thought I did but a friend told me that a low pH would cause that and not a high