Tap water/ RO water living soil

[Cookiezealous]

The Ph out of my tap is right around 8.9.
This is insane
I’ve been dropping the PH when I water my plants but ever since I moved here the general health of all of them has been poor compared to my last house. I don’t try to hit an exact number. I just try to bring it down a little bit, but I’m going to start using RO water in my living soil and see if that helps. might have to adjust with minerals and nutrients if I need them, but I don’t water to get Run off, so I don’t think I’m going to be stripping the soil of anything. Does anyone else have any experience in this? Someone told me yesterday that they used RO water and they were using living soil and I’m a little bit interested in everyone else’s experience. That photo is my water straight out of the tap. It’s ridiculous. Also, I live in Denver.

 

[TCH]

The Ph out of my tap is right around 8.9.
This is insane
I’ve been dropping the PH when I water my plants but ever since I moved here the general health of all of them has been poor compared to my last house. I don’t try to hit an exact number. I just try to bring it down a little bit, but I’m going to start using RO water in my living soil and see if that helps. might have to adjust with minerals and nutrients if I need them, but I don’t water to get Run off, so I don’t think I’m going to be stripping the soil of anything. Does anyone else have any experience in this? Someone told me yesterday that they used RO water and they were using living soil and I’m a little bit interested in everyone else’s experience. That photo is my water straight out of the tap. It’s ridiculous. Also, I live in Denver.

Have you calibrated that pen? Compared it to a known good pen or drops?

 

[Kushash]

The Ph out of my tap is right around 8.9.
This is insane
I’ve been dropping the PH when I water my plants but ever since I moved here the general health of all of them has been poor compared to my last house. I don’t try to hit an exact number. I just try to bring it down a little bit, but I’m going to start using RO water in my living soil and see if that helps. might have to adjust with minerals and nutrients if I need them, but I don’t water to get Run off, so I don’t think I’m going to be stripping the soil of anything. Does anyone else have any experience in this? Someone told me yesterday that they used RO water and they were using living soil and I’m a little bit interested in everyone else’s experience. That photo is my water straight out of the tap. It’s ridiculous. Also, I live in Denver.

If your water is from the Rocky Mountains, it's going to have a lot of calcium in it plus a good amount of other good minerals. The PH is always high. I use Rocky Mountain water also. I cut the tap with RO. 1 part tap 2 parts RO. I don't PH the water. The soil if properly buffered will deal with the PH.

 

[calvin.m16]

RO is pure neutral pH h2o so I don't see why you would have an issue in living soil if you properly formulated your soil. I used RO with M3 mix, it's kinda like super soil? No problems at all start to finish other than with that soil I had to use huge pots to carry plants through to the end, soil life?

Also, I can't use my well water because of the obsurdly high pH level and other bullshit (silt, rust, iron, sulfur etc??)
New Sediment Filter is what I'm holding up, I wouldn't wanna drink what's on the installed sediment filter..


I personally grow in coco/perlite using RO water and maxibloom, I never have issues and have never considered going back to soil, but when I did use soil I never had issues using pure water.

 

[Cookiezealous]

Awesome, thank you for all of your input. I think I’m gonna try the 50/50 RO tapwater thing and see how it does. This is just one of those things that consistently keeps popping up and I can’t seem to nail down. I checked the pH meter calibrated it, and then tested it against another one, and got the same results. I always like to hear what happens when people solve their problems because it’s always something really random. I had zero problems outside of pests until I moved.

 

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Maybe look into a two stage filter. RO makes a lot of waste water and you might be able get by with an under sink filter for maybe half the price of an RO system. Call your local grow shop and ask them what folks are doing. They probably have the solution in stock..though probably also overpriced.

 

[Jjgrow420]

Save the waste water and run it into your washing machine. Use it to wash clothes or run the line outside into a flower bed or lawn. No waste.