water conditioner safe?

[ThorGanjason]

I water with city tap water. I've seen products at the fish store for water conditioner that dechlorinates water, and ammonia treatment (or something) that gets rid of chlorine, ammonia, and chloramine.

Does anyone know if these are safe to treat water with for your plants?

 

[jondamon]

I water with city tap water. I've seen products at the fish store for water conditioner that dechlorinates water, and ammonia treatment (or something) that gets rid of chlorine, ammonia, and chloramine.

Does anyone know if these are safe to treat water with for your plants?

Its a bit iffy to be honest.

Because they also bind heavy metals.

How hard is your city tap water?

Do you know the EC or ppm etc?

You can also ask for a breakdown of what's in it.

For example my water company adds phosphates to slow down copper corrosion, nitrates, chlorine, fluoride, Ca, Mg etc.

My starting EC is 0.2. Classed as semi soft water. Anything above 0.4EC is deamed hard water.

But don't forget that plants use chlorine too.




J

 

[ThorGanjason]

Thanks j, I've been thinking of calling and asking them what they use, to at least find out if they use chloramine. I don't have an ec meter but the ppm is 200, slightly hard so I've been thinking of other options.

 

[jondamon]

200ppm on the .5 or .7 scale?


If its .7 then 200ppm should be fine.

Or you can also look for hard water versions of your nutes.


Have you been getting problems with your plants that makes you think there's an issue with water quality?


Also just so you know, SEACHEM PRIME is one of the best water conditioners but its heavily sulfur based I think ( it smells of sulfur anyway).

It makes chlorine, chloramine, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates less harmful to fish. It also add an additive to help with their slime coating.




J

 

[jondamon]

And 5ml of prime will condition 50gallons of water.



J

 

[ThorGanjason]

Cool, its under the .7 scale so hopefully that's fine. I worry about the chloramine BC I'm using aurora's roots organics line and I don't want to kill of my good bacteria and fungi.

And yeah, I'm having problems with the "internal water pressure" of my plants; the tops are getting really droopy towards the end of the day and since I switched to hps from my metal halide its gotten worse.

My temps are decent and humidity isn't too bad (≈40% day, 50-60% night), so I'm not really sure. Someone told me they would be shocked from the switch for a few days, which they have been a little worse but they were even doing it before hand a little.



I pH my water with the indicator dye; I'm gonna try and start mixing my nutes a day before I feed (says on the bottle it will help buffer). I don't think I've been giving my pH solution enough time to get an accurate reading before I water with it, so I think I'm using too much pH plus when I feed.

 

[ThorGanjason]

BTW, over/under watering also not a problem. I water every 4-5 days in smart pots and have plenty of perlite in my mix.

It looks like a light problem/heat problem, which I guess its the light BC my temps are fine. They've only been under the HPS for 3 days, I turned my ballast down to 400w and have it about 18 inches above the canopy trying to get them to come out of shock, so we'll see.

 

[jondamon]

That is quite alot of droop.

I read an article some posted on here about the effects chlorine has on beneficials.

Ill try and find it for you.

I'm sure it stated in lab testing that the die off from the chlorine etc quickly came back.


Hang on........

Sorry I can't find it.


Usually droops occur from under or over watering.


Are the stems really supple? Flexible? Bendy?

Or is it just droopy but still firm?


If its the first answer it could be worthwhile looking for an Si based product.

Unsure with organics what you could use.

I do know diatomaceous earth can be used. Granted something like 85% isn't water soluble, some of it is.



Si helps to strengthen cell walls, improves nutrient uptake, helps fight disease and helps fight pests.




J

 

[jondamon]

Oh and helps against drought and helps with heat resistance.



J

 

[jondamon]

You water every 4-5 days?

What size pots?

Seems like a long time to go between waterings.



J

 

[Sir.Ganga]

I have had quite a few strains that need "special care" when switching light sources. I would place the light 24-36" away and watch the watering, when they do stress they will not uptake nutes or even water at times. Are the pots heavier than usual when you go to water? The color and general look makes me think soggy feet, which makes sense if they are stressing over lights. A couple of good meters are worth every penny. Good Luck

 

[ThorGanjason]

Thanks for the responses guys. J, I was just reading about the si supplements, my local grow store has protekt (dyna gro) and I'll probably pick some up. Was wanting to keep it all organic but it seems like I could use it.

My smart pots are 3 gallons, and actually lately I have been watering more frequently. I wasn't seeing any droop (from drought) but wanted to make sure my plants had enough water BC I was letting them get dry so I started watering a day sooner.

The stems are nice and firm at the bottom, still firm but flexible at the top and the bottom leaves feel soft and cool but the top leaves have the dry crisp feeling.

I also read over feeding can cause this with the leafs, but it started happening right around the time I started lowering my nute concentrations. I know organic nutes take longer to affect the plant but I'm talking after two weeks of lowered nutes it started doing this.

It was doing it a little right before the switch from the metal halide. That picture is showing when it was the worst a couple days ago after ai switched to hps and fed full strength.

I'm hoping its shock from the light transfer and only temporary. The only plant not affected is my og kush, which is still basically a seedling and didn't spend as much time under the mh bulb.

Thanks again, cheers

 

[ThorGanjason]

I have had quite a few strains that need "special care" when switching light sources. I would place the light 24-36" away and watch the watering, when they do stress they will not uptake nutes or even water at times. Are the pots heavier than usual when you go to water? The color and general look makes me think soggy feet, which makes sense if they are stressing over lights. A couple of good meters are worth every penny. Good Luck

Thanks, sir ganja, that's a handy little piece of info, I'll remember that. Honestly that might be one reason why I was going so long in between waterings; the plants might not have been using the water, so it was staying wet longer. I was letting them get reaalllly dry in between waterings, but they wouldn't wilt. Maybe BC the water was hanging around a little longer.

I did also notice (now that you mention) that the day after I watered my soil was still really moist, like I had just watered them. The drainage is really good in those fabric smart pots and I have an inch of perlite on the bottom so usually when I water its fairly light the next day.

The more I talk this thing out the more I think you guys are right and its more of a light/stress situation. Hopefully they adjust, I just went in and looked at them again and they are still in bad shape-- I can see some copper spots where there I'd actual light burn, and I think I added to much pH up when I fed yesterday and so I need to flush asap.

It sucks BC I want (read:need) to flip these things but in want them vigorous before I do. My white widow is really stressed, I think he got hit hardest by the pH thing. When I fed, I mixed my nutes and then started adding the pH plus. I checked it two or three times and it was still low so I kept adding the stuff, without giving it time to buffer in between adding it. By the time it was turning the yellowish-green I wanted from the indicator dye I realized the bottle of buffer had lost a substantial amount (i had just bought a new bottle).

I'm gonna go with the ol' flush and repeat as soon as I can and hopefully I can make sure my pH is balanced and they'll be nice and acclimated to the HPS at the same time

 

[ThorGanjason]

So I have a question while were on This topic-- does a plant show signs of stress when it starts to flower? I'm not sure if you saw my other post, but switching from the metal halide to the hps has caused all of my plants to start flowering even tho they are still on 16 hours of light.

So I switched my timer today to run 14/10. Do you think that maybe the light stress was from the plant getting 16 hours of light when it was ready to flower?

Maybe that's why it was showing signs of stress before I switched. My plants are a lot older than they look, and so they were just dying to bloom. I gotta admit, its pretty awesome- they've only been under the hps for 3 days and 7 out of 8 of my bag seed have pistils