Very high EC tap water, what should I do?
- Thread starter VictorFlorez
- Start date
DrOgkush
Well-Known Member
Iv been running to the store grabbing 25 gallons of ro a week for the last 3-4 months.
make it a trip, You meet some crazy mother fuckers around here at 5-6 in the morning.
But I use my wife’s wheel chair to carry all the jugs. Or wagon at the house. Is what it is. But in order to use the AN line I’m using. Its formulated for RO. And perfect ph. But one 5 gal jug just for seedlings. That’s like a couple weeks.
Matter of fact. I’ll be going later today to grab 25 gallons of RO at rite aid water machine outside. Plus a guy maintenance it once a week. I try to go on his days.
My ec levels so low. It just bounces off 0.0 to 0.1. And ppm is 0008. Ph 7.5. Plants love it
The food your giving them. They’re eating. Not a handful full of calcium with a pinch of npks.
make it a trip, You meet some crazy mother fuckers around here at 5-6 in the morning.
But I use my wife’s wheel chair to carry all the jugs. Or wagon at the house. Is what it is. But in order to use the AN line I’m using. Its formulated for RO. And perfect ph. But one 5 gal jug just for seedlings. That’s like a couple weeks.
Matter of fact. I’ll be going later today to grab 25 gallons of RO at rite aid water machine outside. Plus a guy maintenance it once a week. I try to go on his days.
My ec levels so low. It just bounces off 0.0 to 0.1. And ppm is 0008. Ph 7.5. Plants love it
The food your giving them. They’re eating. Not a handful full of calcium with a pinch of npks.
VictorFlorez
Member
True, I have nothing to complain about really, especially at this early stage when anything I spend on buying water will go a long way. I like the idea of frequent runs to the shop and buying water, way more than losing 3/4 of my total EC to whatever crud they are putting in this tap water.
You've just given me an idea... There's a water machine at the local university, might be worth bringing a jug and checking it.
DrOgkush
Well-Known Member
All Those machines iv seen or used. It’s ro. I tell my family I’m off to the watering hole.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
All raindrops form around a bit of dust, pollen etc as do snowflakes. I used to use a water cannon on the roof of the water truck to make artificial snow to make snow bridges across creeks etc. We had a 1" SS flex pipe strapped to the barrel of the cannon right behind the nozzle tip and would shove the other end into the exhaust stack so the diesel particles could be that speck of dust to turn frozen water drops into big honkin' snowflakes.
That's how acid rain is made. All the nitrogen dioxides, NOx and sulphur dioxides, SOx in the air from coal fired electric plants all along the eastern part of the US that pumped tons of both out every hour turn into nitric and sulphuric acid when combined with water and fall as low as pH3. Decades of that were killing thousands of lakes all the way to the arctic circle in Canada until they started cleaning up the exhausts back in the 80s. Dead lakes looked like swimming pools from the air and people thought they were pretty. lol
Any way, stuff like that causes rain water to have lower than 7 for a pH tho may not be harmful in itself. Once the raindrop forms it also picks up whatever it runs into on the way to the ground. Raindrops are not tear-drop shaped like you'd think but cupped on the bottom as they fall so can pick up more with the wider surface area.
The acidity is weak tho so just a drop or two of pH Up will probably push it over 7.
Your water is alkaline and has more strength so you might knock it back to pH6 then an hour later it's back to where you started. That's because you neutralized teh free ions but once the acid is used up the minerals left release fresh ions that drive the pH back up. Can take a lot of pH Up with really hard water to get it to stay at one place. The reaction takes time too so you should wait up to an hour or more before testing but test right after then try an hour later and see what happens. Overnight is better to see if it changes one way or the other. The ppm and thus the pH/alkalinity can change with the seasons as well. So much easier with RO or distilled water.
I hope I explained that clearly. It's been over 30 years since I got my diploma in environmental chemistry in my 30s plus I'm an old fart now and sometimes the spark plugs don't all fire at the right time. Or at all.
Mine is about .9ec also. I started going to a filling station with 5gal jugs where it’s a dollar to fill them. Then I cut it by around 1/3 with tap water.
i ran a couple grows in coir using the tap water and it worked fine for the most part but I had some serious tip burn.
i ran a couple grows in coir using the tap water and it worked fine for the most part but I had some serious tip burn.
calvin.m16
Well-Known Member
A: Use it and see how the plants respond
B: Filter the water using Reverse Osmosis system by HydroLogic or any other brand.
B: Filter the water using Reverse Osmosis system by HydroLogic or any other brand.
PJ Diaz
Well-Known Member
Dude, just buy a RO unit. You will save money in the long run. A lot of time too.
calvin.m16
Well-Known Member
I personally climb 10 miles up a mountain for fresh spring water a gallon at a time. No but seriously just use Reverse Osmosis water and if you're worried about micronutrients/minerals use BioAg TM-7 weekly per instructions and they'll get PLENTY of mironutrients.
If you can connect a garden hose and turn it on then you can connect a reverse osmosis system to your nearest water supply and fill a reservoir with RO filtered pure water.
If you can connect a garden hose and turn it on then you can connect a reverse osmosis system to your nearest water supply and fill a reservoir with RO filtered pure water.
Don't drink your RO water it's really bad for you and the units generally say not suitable for drinking.
calvin.m16
Well-Known Member
I second this, it has no minerals. Same as distilled water it is not recommended to be drank full time. ultra pure water just ends up drawing minerals from your body and can cause lots of health issues.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
Wrong on both counts. Does not leach minerals from your body and millions of health conscious people drink RO all the time. Hard water causes all sorts of health problems like kidney stones and can be too high in iron, sodium calcium etc.
Eat a decent diet and you'll get all the minerals you need from your food.
I add some table salt and pink himilayan salt to my glass of RO for flavour. Also because I have low blood pressure and extra salt and caffeine are about the only thing you can do to help keep the BP up as they don't have meds for that. At 67 low BP is better than high BP but it does have it's effects like sudden fatigue and irritablity when it goes low and it's been down to 80/50 at times when I check with my BP machine. Normal for me is 110/70. At the doctor today it was 113/72 and that was 5 min after walking a few blocks to get there so I should have had it checked just before I left and it would have been lower. My weight has dropped 8 lbs since my last visit a year ago to 132lbs so I need to eat a bit more but not a big eater unless I'm really active and I've been lazy.
In the future please preface your opinions with the phrase, I believe that . . . so we know you're pulling it out of your rear portals.
calvin.m16
Well-Known Member
RO water makes me shit my brains out and I eat whole heads of cauliflower and broccoli. It also causes me to have muscle cramps that normally don't occur. I have a nutrient rich diet and take vitamins and supplements. RO water is not healthy to drink full time.
Drinking pure h2o isn't going to lower your weight.
I think if ro gives you the shits it's contaminated. I'd guess bacteria?
DrOgkush
Well-Known Member
I Already Have it. Just got it. Not hooked up yet. I don’t drink ro. So it hasn really been as issue. That and rite aid is my neighbor. And the only time wasted is time I care about. If I’m bored or running that direction. It’s just in the back of mind and never really thought of it as a choir. As 25 gallons last me. Quite some time. But yeah. I might be installing the new unit as early as today because temps are starting to peak earlier and last longer. I don’t want it to ever become a “choir”
PJ Diaz
Well-Known Member
I have a remineralization filter that I can easily put on or take off of my RO unit, so that it can make great drinking water. Here's the filer I use with my RO for drinking water:
ecospring™ Remineralization Post-Filter
Adds a small amount of important trace minerals that give the water a crisp, spring water flavor for the HydroLogic ecospring.
www.hydrologicsystems.com
LeastExpectedGrower
Well-Known Member
At .9EC I'd consider cutting the tap water with filtered water at a ratio of something like 1:2 and knock that down to ~.3EC. I recently started to do similar with my well water (EC ranges from .44 to .66)...started by going 1:1 with filtered water, which helped, but I realized that one of my dehumidifiers pulls about 1.5-2g of water a day from mid-may through September, so I save all that and supplement with filtered water.
From there I add the Ca/Mg back in and I've been keeping my feed EC in the 1.2-1.4 range.
I was finding that while my water was high in minerals already, the plants were still having Ca/Mg issues, so what was in the water wasn't being bio-available to the plants...So I was adding Epsom and ca/mg which took care of those deficiencies...but then I ended up with a potassium deficiency issue (probably due to the high Ca/Mg in the well water plus what I was having to add locking out the K)...
Anyway. I don't have a fancy RO system for a few reasons...Primarily because of the waste water it produces and us being on a well. But I did buy a ZeroWater pitcher/filter and that's been more cost effective and less pain in the assy, than buying R/O locally (where it seems pretty pricey, about a buck a gallon even if you're doing 5g jugs). And between the dehumidifier water and what I put through the filter, the end cost isn't terrible, something like 30c or less per gallon. And then I'm using 0ec water for my nutrient base.
From there I add the Ca/Mg back in and I've been keeping my feed EC in the 1.2-1.4 range.
I was finding that while my water was high in minerals already, the plants were still having Ca/Mg issues, so what was in the water wasn't being bio-available to the plants...So I was adding Epsom and ca/mg which took care of those deficiencies...but then I ended up with a potassium deficiency issue (probably due to the high Ca/Mg in the well water plus what I was having to add locking out the K)...
Anyway. I don't have a fancy RO system for a few reasons...Primarily because of the waste water it produces and us being on a well. But I did buy a ZeroWater pitcher/filter and that's been more cost effective and less pain in the assy, than buying R/O locally (where it seems pretty pricey, about a buck a gallon even if you're doing 5g jugs). And between the dehumidifier water and what I put through the filter, the end cost isn't terrible, something like 30c or less per gallon. And then I'm using 0ec water for my nutrient base.
VictorFlorez
Member
I've done what @OldMedUser said and added a tiny bit of himalayan pink rock salt to filtered water before, but a remineralisation filter sounds great!I have a remineralization filter that I can easily put on or take off of my RO unit, so that it can make great drinking water. Here's the filer I use with my RO for drinking water:
ecospring™ Remineralization Post-Filter
Adds a small amount of important trace minerals that give the water a crisp, spring water flavor for the HydroLogic ecospring.
Thank you, yes I'm mixing cheap spring water with some of the tap water, and also demineralised water for now. Each have different uses, the nutes I'm using seem to lower pH quite a bit, so the tap water is useful for boosting pH when I water down the feeds for seedings without shifting EC dramatically, the acidic (5.6) spring water lowers EC slightly and also pH, and the distilled water drops EC right down without changing pH much.
Between all three I find it easy to hit my pH ~6.2, EC ~0.8 mark when diluting the full strength feed from the res.
It.s good to know the dehumidifier will come in handy for some clean water when the time comes to use it.
Thanks again to everybody who has replied here. Being new to this plus a bit slow has caused a few moments of stress, but it's been very helpful having this forum to back me up.
Snickerpus
Active Member
You may get through in big pot of peat, but I doubt you can have succes in coco. For DWC obviously not. That low EC in condensate water are ussually heavy metals BTW.