Which type of water to use

I just use drinking water from the grocery store 1 dollar a gallon! It runs between 50 - 125 ppm . My tap water is horrible 580 ppm !! Those water filters in front of a lot of stores works , but I'm not too happy with sitting there filtering jugs of water to save 2 bucks ! RO units are either very slow or very expensive . Also you can get a rain water collection barrel and catch rain water ! Thats free ! Make sure that whatever you use make sure you add your nutes THAN ph your water! Since I started using bottled water my ph problems disapeared !! :peace:
 
nachoman said:
How does one go about testing there water?
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Have you googled an on-line water analysis for your tap yet?

google .... your city+water system

You may be stressing over nothing, find out what your tap water is first.:smokin:

BTW ... some RO units do not remove chlorine/chloramine, apparently it takes an extra filter/step. I'll do a link later. Never knew this myself.

Do that water analysis!!!!!!!!

DD
 
It looks like my PH is 8.39
Hardness PPM and Akalinty PPM are at 35.1
Sodium PPM 37.0

I know the PH matters but from this report what am I looking for?
 
From those numbers you posted, you could be in a good position.

You can deal with the PH by using PH Down. You're water at 35PPM is about the same as one of the guys mentioned. I believe the "threshold" for hard water is about 200PPM.

It looks like you could use your city tap water. I would invest in a meter to take a local reading of your water.

Now we'll see what everyone says.

SF
 
Sounds like it would be fine just don't adjust your ph first add your nutes etc than check and try for 5.8 , but don't go nuts just be close and your fine .As far as chlorine just let the water sit out for about an hour it just evaporates ! I don't know what nutes your using but it's always a good idea to add a bit (5ml per gal) of cal-mag just to make sure ! :peace:
 
Screwnuts33 said:
Test your tap water first. You may save yourself some money and time. My tap water here is only 30ppm. Not worth the time or money for an R/O system. Keep in mind that R/O systems are extremely slow. The gallons per day rating is for a 24hr period. So if it is rated at 50gpd it will take one hour to make two gallons of water.
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oops
 
Screwnuts33 said:
Test your tap water first. You may save yourself some money and time. My tap water here is only 30ppm. Not worth the time or money for an R/O system. Keep in mind that R/O systems are extremely slow. The gallons per day rating is for a 24hr period. So if it is rated at 50gpd it will take one hour to make two gallons of water.
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hi Screwnuts33, can you tell me which "ppm" am I supposed to be looking at?
sample water report but i am not sure what measurement I am supposed to look at. There's Chlorine, Barium, Hardiness etc etc. Which one are you looking at when you refer to "ppm"?

thanks. :smokin:
 
nachoman said:
It looks like my PH is 8.39
Hardness PPM and Akalinty PPM are at 35.1
Sodium PPM 37.0

I know the PH matters but from this report what am I looking for?
Click to expand...

StinkFinger said:
From those numbers you posted, you could be in a good position.

You can deal with the PH by using PH Down. You're water at 35PPM is about the same as one of the guys mentioned. I believe the "threshold" for hard water is about 200PPM.
Click to expand...

It looks to me like his water is not 35ppm. I am guessing from what he posted that his water report listed a breakdown of different things in the water and the individual parts per million of each. You'll note that he stated that (just) the sodium in his water was at 37ppm. I would also not make the assumption that adding all of the parts per million listed would total the ppm of TDS in his water as municipalities do not test for every contaminant known to man.

The threshold of 200ppm that you mentioned is for TDS. I believe that the generally-accepted amount of calcium content would be around 70ppm. IF the "hardness PPM and Alkalinity PPM" is a measurement of calcium then the water would of course be fine but I do not know exactly what they mean by that so I couldn't say.

Remember that TDS stands for TOTAL Dissolved Solids.

Hmm... Remember also that TDS meters measure the dissolved salts/minerals in the solution - the electrical conductivity of it - and therefore don't measure dissolved organic solids (such as sugars and colloids). Probably why those who use an EC meter feel that they are in a better place of understanding (stands for Electrical Conductivity, which is what they all are AfaIK regardless of the name). That is probably why my local water treatment plant uses pH equipment that cost thousands of dollars but for measuring 'solids in the water they will actually take a sample, weigh it on a very accurate scale (it measures to I believe .00001 gram and sits on a 1000 pound table in a glass case so the readings aren't affected by someone walking through the room or any stray air currents), then remove the water and way the precipitate that is left over - instead of dipping a probe from a meter into the water.

I don't know where I'm going with all of this, it's 5:15am and I'm "drunk" from exhaustion (and the alarm goes off at 5:30, groan!) so it might not even make sense, lol.

Oh, and I feel that I should state that the scale I mentioned has never been used for purposes other than Official Water Department Business and that the pH equipment has never been used to check samples of anything other than their water samples.

I should, but I can't.:ganjamon:
 
Look for TOTAL DISSOLVED SOLIDS or something worded like that.

On mine, it goes SOLIDS (TOTAL DISSOLVED). I freaked because they list the MCL (Maximum Contaminate Level), first and it is 500ppm.:thedoubletake: I was ready to order a RO unit till I re read and saw the 'actual' was only 37ppm.:adore:

DD
 
i bought an r.o. system rated at 50 g.p.d. and my tap water is 1200 ppm ,you can only draw about 1/2 -1 gal. at a time thats all the storage tank will hold it all depends on your water pressure and how bad your water is , the system brought the ppm to around 300 , iv been buying my water at the grocery store ,they have r.o.systems that they sell bulk water at , i have two 7 gal. jugs i fill and they charge me for 5 @ 1.89 each 14 gals. last pretty long its a hassle but its good water , i test it when im there with my meter and its usually around 10 ppm , you absolutely need a e.c. , t.d.s. meter if your going to be growing , remember you have to use cal-mag with r.o. water .......................... dont be misled by the advertised output rate of the r.o. systems out there i thought i was getting a good one ................................ smokr1
 
Wow, all this info on water quality! I've been growing a while and use just plain city tap water, haven't had any problems. Tried to look up the water quality stats for my city with no luck.

Perhaps I should be using something different? Don't want to invest alot of money in equip to test my water either. What to do?
 
funtogow said:
Wow, all this info on water quality! I've been growing a while and use just plain city tap water, haven't had any problems. Tried to look up the water quality stats for my city with no luck.
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Call your water department and ask them if you can stop by and pick up a water report. They have to produce them - I believe every year - and you probably get one in the mail but they look like junk mail so it might not have been noticed. Also, they may either offer (reasonably) inexpensive sample-testing services or be able to recommend someone.

I typed "water testing services" into Google but the couple that I checked were somewhat pricey. It's a good place to start looking in the event that you aren't satisfied with what your local water department has to say - there were 238,000 results to my query.

Everyone should know what is in their local water supply; after all, it is used for drinking, cooking, etc.

funtogow said:
Perhaps I should be using something different? Don't want to invest alot of money in equip to test my water either. What to do?
Click to expand...

I assume that you have a TDS or EC meter? If not, they're cheap - a good Milwaukee model is under $100.
 
You can't go by what the water department says. They are going to cook their books to make the water look as good as they can. Most systems have many different wells so they will take their sample from the best well. Then you have to take into consideration the miles of pipe underground. Has that pipe been in the ground for 75 years? What do you think could be built up on the interior of the pipe that has been in the ground for that long. The water department takes the reading at the wellhead not at your house.
 
We use RO and get it for like a quarter for a huge container... I think it's like 5 gallon size. We have crappy water here. I won't drink it, so the girls aren't gonna be subjected to it either.
 
OilFieldTrash said:
You can't go by what the water department says. They are going to cook their books to make the water look as good as they can. Most systems have many different wells so they will take their sample from the best well. Then you have to take into consideration the miles of pipe underground. Has that pipe been in the ground for 75 years? What do you think could be built up on the interior of the pipe that has been in the ground for that long. The water department takes the reading at the wellhead not at your house.
Click to expand...

Very true. The sample that they go on is going to be the best that the water can be. But even that can give a clue in that if the report is bad, you know that the supply at the residence is going to be that much worse.

I've still got one bit of galvanized water line in my home that AFAIK is over 35 years old (yeah, I've heard that might be past the "replace by" date) because the ceiling would have to be torn down to get to it and one of my neighbors told me that they helped the previous owner redo that ceiling in '75. Go away for a weekend and return & turn on the tub taps and out comes the water so rusty you wonder how it manages to flow. It's on my "things to do when you've got the funds to replace the ceiling" list, lol. Hoping I get there before the lines go so I don't have to do an emergency redneck patch job.
 

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