Tap Water, Mineral Water, Purified Water or Distilled Water???

[MrIntricate]

Which type of water should I use with my aeroponinc system. Yeah, yeah, I know about the Ph and all that jazz. So which is best? Is there even a difference?

 

[OmegaVermelho]

u can use all except mineral water wich has high concentration of ppm....but anyway u should allways check and correct pH and ppm so..

 

[Merciless_One]

I would have to say Distilled water, because there is no chlorine or other chemicals that are added for "taste" like there are in the regular tap.

You probably don't want to to use "mineral" water either...for reasons that Omega said...you don't know which concentration of "minerals" are added to the water. You could probably go with "purified" water, since that is basically the same thing as distilled.

I have only been using distilled water, and it's been giving me no issues at all

 

[MrIntricate]

Thanks fellas.

 

[OmegaVermelho]

....I have only been using distilled water, and it's been giving me no issues at all....

I only do that 1 time at each cycle in my hydro setups ....

Veg - i have the plants in a bubbler (20 Litre tub, olds 2 - 4 plants)
Flower - Ebb n Flow (75 Litre tray 6 - 10 plants)

bealive me that the water bill would a lot cheaper if i use only tap water (after checking pH and ppm of course)...but destiled water or a reverse osmosis system are def the way to go...peace

 

[padigreenfinger]

hi, rain water is super, but not always a possibility.
the reason being its pure, and has a low EC, normally 0.1

this will allow you to add alot more nutrients without destroying the medium. however, tapwater is just as good. especially if you have soft water, or there is a filter on your home.

ppl say many things about water, but i always use soft tapwater. allow it to sit for 24 hours before use, to rid itself of chlorines, and measure the EC value. the lower it is, the more nutrients you can add. start with 0.6 for vegative stage, and continue to 2.2 till you finish your crop.....hope this was a help....

 

[Alaskangrown]

The only problem with using soft water is that it has a high concentration of salt. Salt is not a problem at first, but if you intend on using the water your whole grow cycle, it will begin to build up within the soil.

The salt build up doesn't damage the plant, but it slows the growth in both veg and bloom.

 

[feliks420]

I'm no expert on growing... but distilled water is just the steam collected, which is basically pure H20, minus a few chemicals that may slip past the purification process.

And, as far as I thought I knew, plants took iron and other minerals from the water and fed on them as well....which distilled water doesn't have, but tap and spring water do. Am I wrong thinking that?

 

[Squarepusher45]

No your right, but... thats what nuts are for.
I have a water softener but all it does is take away lime and calcium and replace it with salt so my PPM is the same before and after softening. And PPM is like 400 and the EC is about 750 and ph at 8.0.
I think it's too strong a ppm to start babies with so I am buying distilled at like 89c gallon.
The distilled I get is like 1.2 ppm and 2.3 ec, and ph is 6.0, just seems more manageable at that level.
Gonna check and see how much reverse osmosis is and see if I can afford it.

 

[Abnjm]

I have been mixing my batches with 1/2 very hard tap water (EC 0.9 / 450ppm; 8.4pH) and 1/2 distilled water. This way I can use the full nute mix, and still have some of the trace elements found in tap water. Now that I am in full bloom, and utilizing a fairly high EC, I am using 100% tap water. The mix comes out about 200ppm higher than mixing half and half, but it appears my pH is more stable.

 

[BuddhaScientist]

Forget water...use Hennessy.

This is the beat aqeous solution out there.

And when you're buds are ready they will be wet with fine cognac.

 

[Perfextionist420]

for my hydroponics grow i use filtered tap water thats sat out for 24 hours then nutrients added then ph corrected. i have yet to have a problem

 

[fat sam]

you never want to use softened water, thats the worst because all those things do is add salt, if you cant afford a R/O then get a britta filter that attaches to the faucet, i have one and the regular tap has 280 ppm and after the filter it measures between 60-70

 

[BUDGI]

I also use tap water haven't had any major problems so far growing for 8 years just
let it sit for 24hrs or so add nutes check ph good to go

 

[rastamanvibration]

what about stream water does that work well also?

 

[KaliKitsune]

In preferred order:

RO water
distilled
Purified
filtered
straight tap

 

[GanjaEnthusiast]

In preferred order:

RO water
distilled
Purified
filtered
straight tap

Kali do you let your RO water sit out over night as well as distilled purified etc.

 

[KaliKitsune]

Generally, no I do not let RO water sit out.

 

[Mcgician]

Generally, no I do not let RO water sit out.

Agreed, as there would be no point. The intent of RO water is purely to drop the PPM. Used nothing but RO water for many years, but later on found out through experimentation that there was little if any difference between oxidized tap water of around 450ppm and my previous method (This was true ONLY for this particular strain, and this particular method). IMO, the only way to be safe and truly eliminate any sort of doubt when trying to decifer any sort of deficiency or excess, is to use a purified, distilled, or RO water to eliminate unknown or hard to calculate variables. Remember, when things are going fine, there's little to contemplate, but if and when something throws you a curve ball, reducing the amount of variables in the equation will help to further a quicker conclusion.

 

[Giyan]

That sounds like your happy with that. I will use that