Here's a good reason not to use tap water

I think a better title would have been; "A good reason to buy a PPM meter".

At 1000 ppm you water requires a water softener and filter as those ppm levels are not within municiple regulations and you should have it checked as thats hard water similar to well water. City water higher then 500 is usually un acceptable as it means its not being filter correctly or you have ground leakage to your water supply.My tap water is 250 ppm at ph 7.In my aero and hydro I subtract my starting ppm from total nute ppm to get a true nute ppm and keep my water at 5.5-5.8 ph and for soil I ph my water to 6.8 ph

Good info, Fletch, thanks for that.

My only concern with water softeners is 'how much sodium do they put in the water?' People with heart disease or hypertension are advised not to drink softened water for this reason, rather to drink the 'hard stuff.' Go figure.

I haven't had any time off from the op (or the cannabis boards) for a while, so I'm going to get lost for a while.



If you can read this, you know where I'm going.

See you in a few weeks.

bula bula!

yea my tap water is 600 ppm and the rainwater i use is 40 ppm

Where the hell do people live where tap water is 600 to 1000 ppm?

I'd check your pipes, distilled water should be close to 0. Normal tap water shouldn't read a lot higher, around 20 ppm. You could be scratching your reference cells.

tap water coming out the faucet @ 20 ppm?


not calling you a liar...but you must be very lucky

yea i know
must have like a super filter somewhere in your city

Mine comes out at 10ppm. Meter tests fine in calibration solution.

Wow this got more posts than I thought it would get!

I did calibrate my TDS meter against a known calibration solution before testing the tap water. RO and distilled water always come up accurately. The TDS measurements of my rez are very similar to the feeding charts PPM prediction.

It could be a problem with my water. I live in a pretty old house in and old neighborhood.

The source of your municipal water will probably be the source of a high Ca or Mg content. If the catchment is mainly limestone, you'll have a lot of Ca in your tapwater. If your catchment is sandstone, there will be very little Ca & Mg (naturally 'soft' water) and you may have to use Ca & Mg additives to prevent deficiencies.

I have the latter situation, a mainly sandstone catchment. Considering how much I pay for Ca & Mg additives, I wouldn't mind a little 'hard' water!