ItsJustMe84
Well-Known Member
Ive just decided to go for canna and follow the guide, it allows you to add all your readings then gives you a schedule to go by,ill just use that as a base and adjust as time goes on.
Hard or Soft Water?
- Thread starter ItsJustMe84
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Mr.Head
Well-Known Member
this
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
Im sorry i cant be of help, i have my own questions about water too. There is a Uk growers thread here where similar questions and problems can be addressed and a Mod called Bish on a Uk weed site who would be able to answer your questions if you can find him. Most ferts should work to a good degree hard or soft water if its soil.
this what.....?
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
Wtf dude, of course ph can not be used to directly correlate water hardness but reguardless of this it does affect ph in the way that calcium carbonate joins with acid to neutralise it into water and carbondioxide- heres some chemistry
CACO3+2HCL->CACL2+CO2+H2O
So with Calcium Carbonate in the water one would expect it to start buffering to the ph it likes to be at which is around 7-9 and the stronger the buffer the closer to ph9.
I cant go on explaining the same thing again and again and i have no advice on what you do with your own water or ferts.
Mr.Head
Well-Known Member
......... I said I agreed with you. You can't tell the amount of TDS in your water by testing PH period. So what are you on about?
Will certain things in tap water make the PH go up and down of course...
again I said I agreed with you. Don't know what you're trying to prove here. No clue why you're trying to argue with someone agreeing with you
Will certain things in tap water make the PH go up and down of course...
again I said I agreed with you. Don't know what you're trying to prove here. No clue why you're trying to argue with someone agreeing with you
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
......... I said I agreed with you. You can't tell the amount of TDS in your water by testing PH period. So what are you on about?
Will certain things in tap water make the PH go up and down of course...
again I said I agreed with you. Don't know what you're trying to prove here. No clue why you're trying to argue with someone agreeing with you
Its not an argument you just refuse to see that over here in the Uk the harder the water the higher the ppm and the higher the ppm the greater the amount of calcium carbonate.
An example is my water and the ops water, im at 70ppm and ph7.3 hes at 110ppm ph8.3.
Now you could never plot a straight line graph but there is a correlation.
You can have hard water with no carbonates but here in the uk we have lots of chalk limestone bedrock so calcium always has some carbonates.
Go ph some water and leave it on the side, in 24hours if its even changed by one point then thats the carbonates neutralising your ph down. We use this science as lime in soil where calciumcarbonate buffers ph to 8/9 whilst the peat buffers it down towards 4, the two together give us a nice 6.5.
Soil/water calcium carbonate does the same thing.
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
Um yes you can and science has been doing this for a long time, if 1342ppm of acid causes pure water to drop from 7.00000 to 4.5634 exactly then next time we repeat this we know that without measuring tds at ph 4.5634 we would have 1342ppm.
This application is used in industries world wide, if you know what your adding you can work out the ph or tds with a series of long hard maths equations.
Maybe chemistry is different over there too!
ItsJustMe84
Well-Known Member
No worrys because my waters ali
Its cool, i appreciate all the feed back, i just need to know a couple more things, will i need cal mag with a low ppm reading?? And when feeding measuring the ppm ec, do i include the waters e.c in the overall plan, or do i subtract the water then make up the recommended ec? So say my water ecs 0.2 and i want to feed my plants upto 0.8 do i feed them 0.6 or do i subtract the water and feed them 0.8?? Im totally brand new to this side of the growing
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
If you want 0.8 and your waters 0.2 then then add together to make 1.0 the total.
I dont think all this water chemistry makes much difference in soil and if i look at my ferts they are pretty heavy with Calmag already.
When i grew soil i had calmag, ph gear beneficials, liquid seaweed and tons more, none of this grew weed as good as just tap water and basic ferts.
skunkd0c
Well-Known Member
What makes you say that, ? hard water is the most common tap water
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
Whats your tap water Ph and ppm's?
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
Permanent hardness
Permanent hardness is hardness (mineral content) that cannot be removed by boiling
. When this is the case, it is usually caused by the presence of calcium sulfate
and/ormagnesium sulfates
in the water, which do not precipitate out as thetemperature
increases. Ions causing permanent hardness of water can be removed using a water softener, or ion exchange column
.
Total Permanent Hardness = Calcium Hardness + Magnesium Hardness
The calcium and magnesium hardness is the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions expressed as equivalent of calcium carbonate.
Total permanent water hardness expressed as equivalent of CaCO3 can be calculated with the following formula: Total Permanent Hardness (CaCO3) = 2.5(Ca2+) + 4.1(Mg2+).[5]
Effects of hard water
With hard water, soap solutions form a white precipitate (soap scum
) instead of producing lather
, because the 2+ ions destroy the surfactant
properties of the soap by forming a solid precipitate (the soap scum). A major component of such scum is calcium stearate
, which arises from sodium stearate
, the main component of soap
:
Permanent hardness is hardness (mineral content) that cannot be removed by boiling
. When this is the case, it is usually caused by the presence of calcium sulfate
and/ormagnesium sulfates
in the water, which do not precipitate out as thetemperature
increases. Ions causing permanent hardness of water can be removed using a water softener, or ion exchange column
.
Total Permanent Hardness = Calcium Hardness + Magnesium Hardness
The calcium and magnesium hardness is the concentration of calcium and magnesium ions expressed as equivalent of calcium carbonate.
Total permanent water hardness expressed as equivalent of CaCO3 can be calculated with the following formula: Total Permanent Hardness (CaCO3) = 2.5(Ca2+) + 4.1(Mg2+).[5]
Effects of hard water
With hard water, soap solutions form a white precipitate (soap scum
) instead of producing lather
, because the 2+ ions destroy the surfactant
properties of the soap by forming a solid precipitate (the soap scum). A major component of such scum is calcium stearate
, which arises from sodium stearate
, the main component of soap
:
ItsJustMe84
Well-Known Member
Im not growing in soil, sorry i thought id explained, im growing in coco and perlite hence why im so worried about getting it right, Ive read that a ppm of 120 isnt a bad start when using nutes, it just confused me because the guys at vitalink claim anything over a ph of 7.8 in the UK is classed as hard water, so i was pretty surprised when i got such a low ppm reading.
If i was growing in soil i wouldn'tbe as bothered.
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
Above is an insert of wiki, we see hardness of water can also account for the sulfates such as calcium sulphate and magnesium sulfate for example.
Most of this i had to learn through reef aquarium forums, water is life or death for these guys and i probably get a lot of it wrong.
Most of this i had to learn through reef aquarium forums, water is life or death for these guys and i probably get a lot of it wrong.
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skunkd0c
Well-Known Member
The ph last time i checked about 5 years ago, was 7.2-7.4
ppms i do not know about those i only know about ec/cf, it would be 0.2-0.3 ec
i remember a very long time ago staying in a softwater area. my clothes never felt so soft and i did not even use any fabric softner! amazing
ItsJustMe84
Well-Known Member
Infact i just checked my water company and it says there 36mg of calcium, i can only assume they mean per litre maybe? Would that suggest enough calcium in my water?
2Hearts
Well-Known Member
Ask them again or google their water analysis data normally available on their website.
Id more guess hard water ferts are there to deal with the higher ph not the level of calcium.
My water company give to readings for calcium, calcium carbonate (not plant absorbable) and total calcium.
Canna hard water use more buffers against ph is my guess and the SLIGHTLY lower calcium levels was just an after thought although id like the chance to quiz their tech department as to wethef this carries any weight or not.
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2Hearts
Well-Known Member
Should be per litre and thinv 36mg/l = 36ppm.
Im going to guess thats calcium carbonate levels rather than total hardness
MrStickyScissors
Well-Known Member
Well I geuss it's how hard your water is. if its 250 to 400 you can get away with it. but if it's like 900 then your going to have a fucked up crop. Only time I have ever had problems in 8 years of growing was 2 times due to the ppm of the tap water being around 900. It's just best to run R/O that way you know what is in your water. You wouldnt run a nutrient line that had a question mark on the lable.