Water for bubbleponics?

jigfresh

jigfresh

Well-Known Member
First off DWC and bubbleponics aren't exactly the same thing. Either way, it's 'better' to use RO water vs. tap. I put better in ' 's because I don't know it's a fact that you can grow better bud with RO vs tap... but for most people they like RO more as it has less in it than tap. Meaning if you measure the tds in RO water it's virtually 0... there's nothing in it. So if your plants can handle 600 ppm, all 600 of those ppms can be nutrients designed for growing MJ. If you have tap water that's 150ppm out the tap, you can only add so many nutes before the plants are unhappy. Don't pay too much attention to numbers I'm saying, just trying to paint a picture.

My first grow I went to the store and bought 30 gallon bottles of purified water. LOL.. they were looking at me funny. I ordered a 5'stage RO filter from ebay the next week and used that for a couple years. Worked great and cost about $150 or something.

These days I use tap water because I just can't waste that much water anymore. With RO water a lot more goes down the drain than you get clean water. My filter dumped 3 gallons down the drain for every 1 gallon of clean water. I'd rather use 30 gallons of tap water to fill my rez, than 120 gallons. :(

Also... it really really depends on what YOUR tap water is like. I live in the mountains and have lovely tap water. If it was really full of gunk or had a horrible pH i'd probably go back to RO.

Hope that helps
 
G

Glaucoma

Well-Known Member
RO is likely best, but it depends on your local water from the tap.

Chlorine is one concern with tap water but is easy enough to deal with. TDS (total dissolved solids) can also be a problem that may require filtration and is usually what will cause the ph to be hard to adjust and maintain. Minerals found in hard water act as a ph buffer.

One pro of using tap water is that it usually contains some Calcium.
 
PetFlora

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
jigfresh, if you add a booster pump you will find the amount of reject/gallon goes down to ~ 1:1

The problem with using tap is what the TDS is made up of. Municipalities generally buy cheap additives. Not only do you have to adjust the rest of your nutes accordingly, but, you are likely not giving them the best minerals

Also, RO does not mean 0 ppm. RO can provide > 90% rejection, but effluent is a factor of tap ppm as well as RO membrane quality. DI removes the rest
 
Green Thumb MN

Green Thumb MN

Active Member
I got tired of daily pH swings with my tap water. I now use r/o and my pH is steady enough that almost NO adjustments are needed. Well worth the cost just due to less worry. (I do have to add back cal/mag now)
 
superstoner1

superstoner1

Well-Known Member
Yes, but ro can cause issues that an experienced grower might not have seen using tap water. Being that it has nothing in it, it can leach nutes from the plants.
 
jigfresh

jigfresh

Well-Known Member
Nice bit of info superstoner. Maybe I'll use RO at the end of the grow when I'm flushing pull extra shizz out the plants. :) Isn't karma nice... I tried to spread some info on water, and end up getting an education myself. Props fellas. (and ladies if your out there lol)
 
PetFlora

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
WTF? This is very bad 411! RO is the base water into which nutes are added. It was never intended to be used alone

superstoner1 said:
Yes, but ro can cause issues that an experienced grower might not have seen using tap water. Being that it has nothing in it, it can leach nutes from the plants.
Click to expand...
 
jigfresh

jigfresh

Well-Known Member
Ok. Just wanted to point out that I use only water in my grow, in response to you saying no one grows using only water. I like the idea of RO leaching nutes from my plants in the end. I would take that over tap not leaching them. Are you saying it's not true that RO leaches salts?
 
PetFlora

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Well, flushing is not growing. Right? Growing means what it says, and therefor requires food/nutrients or whatever you are 'growing' will die. Right?

As to what RO water is, it is water containing dissolved solids that has been forced under pressure through a thin film membrane. Read up on how the solids are rejected.

Depending on the amount of dissolved solids in the enfluent (incoming water) and water line pressure, ~ 90% of the dissolved solids will be rejected, leaving virtually pure water, which BY ITSELF would leach minerals, BUT, once nutrients/minerals are added, RO water is no longer what you started with. Got it?

jigfresh said:
Ok. Just wanted to point out that I use only water in my grow, in response to you saying no one grows using only water. I like the idea of RO leaching nutes from my plants in the end. I would take that over tap not leaching them. Are you saying it's not true that RO leaches salts?
Click to expand...
 
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