Dear organic gurus.. How to unsalt my soft water

Just got a new house that does not have an outlet for well water before my softener. It will be a few days until I can get it fixed up.

So in the meantime I need to water/tea my plants and buying water is very unrealistic in the amounts I need...

My idea that I'm trying as I type this is as follows.. I got a 5 gallon bucket with 3 air stones and a monster air pump jamming. I added enzymes at about 3x the normal rate and added some "vermibrix" which is a sugar/carb.. I then let this bubble for a couple hours. Added my humus and worm castings and "vermifeast" which is various base tea ingredients premixed and 20 ml of earth juice tonic.. It's got a great head on it at the moment with only about 4 hours total bubble time.

am I safe to use it since its foaming so well even with the earth juice tonic?

Any other suggestions?

Most houses that are on a well bypass the softener for the outdoor hose water. follow your lines carefully and you may be in luck.

Another option is, dump the sodium chloride out of the softener and refill it with potassium chloride pellets which are available everywhere you can get the salt. Run your water enough, or reset you softener, to get the potassium available in the line and not the salt.

Or, just just deal with the hard water by dumping the S.C. and don't add anything to soften water... after you cycle it enough you'll be ok.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Diamond-Crystal-40-lb-Potassium-Chloride-Water-Softening-Pellets-100012447/100614656

abe supercro said:

Most houses that are on a well bypass the softener for the outdoor hose water. follow your lines carefully and you may be in luck.

Another option is, dump the sodium chloride out of the softener and refill it with potassium chloride pellets which are available everywhere you can get the salt. Run your water enough, or reset you softener, to get the potassium available in the line and not the salt.

Or, just just deal with the hard water by dumping the S.C. and don't add anything to soften water... after you cycle it enough you'll be ok.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Diamond-Crystal-40-lb-Potassium-Chloride-Water-Softening-Pellets-100012447/100614656

Click to expand...

Ya first thought of mine was to use the outdoor faucets but they are T'd off right after the softener.. That's my luck..

The bin is about as full as it can get with what I'm assuming is salt... It might just be potassium chloride off the rip (not my luck) but I doub it... The old lady is already super mad about how bad the water is on her hair lol so I doubt I could get away with emptying the bin and all that.. We are going to plumb a line pre softner hopefully tomorrow or the next day if my plumber doesn't still have the flu so in the meantime I really was hoping for simple/cheap lol.

If I used soft water to brew tea would it just brew an extremeophile soup of salt loving microbes that would eat the salt?

Even if Microbe did "consume" the sodium, where do you think the Sodium Ions went? *poof gone* |

Buy water or tap the source before your softener.

alcohol said:

Even if Microbe did "consume" the sodium, where do you think the Sodium Ions went? *poof gone* |

Buy water or tap the source before your softener.

Click to expand...

I have no idea, how does using enymes in flush work? I assumed the sodium was converted into something else but what that is I have no idea.

The only way to get rid of it is RO filter you could make a make shift activated charchol filter to get by

You'll need some way to get the excess sodium out. I'm with @hells canyon genetics... RO filter.

Google your water softener model and see if it can be put in a bypass mode ( usually it's a valve on the back of the unit ) if so do that, turn on the faucet for a couple minutes to get the soft out of the lines and you should be gtg, click it back on and the ole lady shouldn't even notice. If that's not an option then as others have said buy water or get an RO system!

Good luck!

I have an RO but that all needs to be set up still.. I Actually plan to just use well water here (hopefully) just to save any water storage headaches.

I watered them with the enzyme pretreated tea and so far no sign of of discomfort. 10 gallons managed to dampen the ones I was worried about the most and they should make it until I can get the plumbing set up.

Thanks for the ideas.

smokin tree said:

Google your water softener model and see if it can be put in a bypass mode ( usually it's a valve on the back of the unit ) if so do that, turn on the faucet for a couple minutes to get the soft out of the lines and you should be gtg, click it back on and the ole lady shouldn't even notice. If that's not an option then as others have said buy water or get an RO system!

Good luck!

Click to expand...

It does have a bypass..... And it was already in bypass mode!!! I'm guessing they set it to that to save the salt for whoever bought the house?? Man I'm totally gonna get in a car accident today... Good luck does not come this way free lol

Interestingly, your RO will work better with softened water vs hard well water

Rrog said:

Interestingly, your RO will work better with softened water vs hard well water

Click to expand...

Would you recommend using RO vs well? I'm waiting on a water test so barring any craziness in my well water I'd rather just use that.

Well is OK if you're not recycling soil extensively. I won't use hard well water in my next grow due to buildup of Ca and Mg

Rrog said:

Well is OK if you're not recycling soil extensively. I won't use hard well water in my next grow due to buildup of Ca and Mg

Click to expand...

Hmm right on il keep that in mind. I'm trying to recycle everything. I eventually want to get it to a No Till Beds with shrooms and mulch cover sooo RO is the way you'd go?

Yep. Or rain water