Deficiency? Chlorine from tap water?

John Ames

John Ames

Member
For certain reasons, last 4 days I watered with tap water, then spots appeared but it doesn't seem to evolve into more. So if not a deficiency, might be Chlorine? Is Chlorine killing life in the soil? Please help. Thanks.

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Chlorine\chloramines in tap water wrecks the beneficial micro heard in aquariums, to some extent anyway, but not sure about pouring into soil... I've always let it sit first, because I know all about cycling aquariums. Don't grow in soil much, but I quit using non gassed off tap water in it decades ago, but don't remember any problems before I did.

Definitely doesn't affect my plants in hydro, and keeps everything nice and clean! I store water in large tubs too, so it doesn't contam at all. Plants like small amounts of chlorine, and it probably isn't enough to hurt the microbes.
 
I tend to leave my tap water sit. Not because of Chlorine, because of temperature. I like to let the tap water equalise to the ambient temperature of my grow space. If you pour icy cold water straight on to the roots, it will shock the plant.

But only in the Winter, in Summer I can just use it out of the tap. In summer my whole garden is watered with tap water and it makes no difference.
 
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They sell cheap inline hose charcoal filters in the RV camp sections, that do a decent job of filtering the chlorine out right away. Also, they have repti safe water treatment, that is safe for aquatic lunged animals and plants, and instantly dissipates all of it. Bubbling takes hours, but sitting takes more than a day.
 
It does seem to go away when you aerate it for a few days actually. Some cities add it, and some don't though, afaik. The only useful info would be a water report, to know if it contains any.
 
Chlorine will not hurt your plants unless it's in very high concentrations. Think of all the people who happily water their house plants and vegetables with tap water and have no problems with soil microbes. After learning more about chlorine I found that it is actually a tertiary nutrient that plants need. I started using tap water fresh from the line instead of letting it sit out for days. First I started on clones and saw no negatives changes. Then I started ADDING raw chlorine into a sterilization mix and adding it to my hydro reservoir. It worked great for years, and the plants thrived.

Chloramine is a different chemical. It does not off gas like chlorine and it is not ideal for plant growth. You need to get an actual water test from the city(sometimes they are available online) to determine what your water has in it. I have had tap water in some cities that I could not use for my plants because there was something wrong with it(I never got the test I just found other clean water).
 
I've been watering with chloramine treated water for decades. The amount of chloramine present will not harm your plants. I also used to add chlorine bleach to my reservoirs when I was running sterile hydro. No harm whatsoever and that was with straight tap water that already had chlorine and chloramine.

I use straight tap water for soil grows as well. No problems whatsoever. You can have bad tap water but it's bad for other reasons than chlorination. Here in the US there are federal standards regarding the amounts of chlorine and chloramine that can be added to tap water so there isn't going to be any location where there are levels high enough to cause any issues with plants.
 
Looks like someone's still in the honeymoon phase :)

Just bite that ugly leaf off and spit it in the toilet.
 
Chlorine isn't causing this issue, but just fyi, you can remove chlorine/chloramine with a small amount of ascorbic acid powder. I probably use about 1/8 teaspoon per bucket of water, but I think you only need about 30 mg per gallon, if I recall correctly. It's cheap on amazon.
 
Yeah, I've never had a problem with tap water in the areas that I have lived.....But, I found one of those plastic inline garden hose filters that says it removes a bunch of junk like chlorine, chloramines, etc. I don't know if it does any good or not, but I know it hasn't done any harm, either.
 
So, for about the first year I used to bubble my tap water 5gallons at a time, with air stones for 1-2 days before jugging to mix with nutrients. Now, i just rinse & refill jugs straight from the kitchen tap. Literally 0 difference in plant response, so I stopped wasting time aerating the water. Not to mention, I water our outdoor garden & flowers with the hose, and it doesn't seem to affect the soil quality in our raised boxes. We still get mushrooms & mycelium no problem.

Don't trip out on every single spot that you see on a plant, only if it's consistently spread throughout the plant. My opinion? --that spot could be from crimping the leaf every-so-slightly when doing nearby maintenance, whether LST or just spreading the leaves out to kind of look around, maybe you flipped the leaf to look at the underside?
 
Some bigger cities have bad problems with prescription drugs in the water supply. They don't even have regulations for the amounts either. People dump their pills, and some of the sewage water leaches, or even gets recycled right back in to the treatment plants. Studies prove traces of all kinds of drugs. Almost every kind, lol. Even hormone blockers and whatnot, but the treatment plants can only do so much..
 
Drop That Sound said:
Some bigger cities have bad problems with prescription drugs in the water supply. They don't even have regulations for the amounts either. People dump their pills, and some of the sewage water leaches, or even gets recycled right back in to the treatment plants. Studies prove traces of all kinds of drugs. Almost every kind, lol. Even hormone blockers and whatnot, but the treatment plants can only do so much..
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I'm glad my water comes from here.

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