How important is water quality?

H

HashBucket

Well-Known Member
Water.
Is there anything more important?

I have never worked from a well before. I been doing this a long time; and I've always bee fortunate enough to have water supplied by a municipal utility. That presents its own problems, but it was problems that I was accustomed to.

Now I work from a well. And I have a lot to learn.

My water has over 350 ppm, and a ph approaching 8.

I use Jacks; and mix it in concentrated form to mix as needed in the feed/water buckets. So I mixed up a batch of Jacks. The B side suddenly became milky. I'd never seen milky before ... but, like a big dummy I just used it. The plants started showing signs of Mag deficiency. I added Cal/Mag. No effect.
Then it got so bad that the whole room was dying. Panic mode.
I go through everything ...

Finally, I decide to mix two batches of Part B.
One batch I used well water, as usual.
The other one I used distilled water.

The well side turned out milky with lots of undissolved solids on the bottom.
The distilled side was somewhat cloudy, but clear - and everything was dissolved.

WTF?

Now, I been using distilled for a month, and the plants are just starting to come back.
I almost burned the whole room down.
I've been spraying with Rhizotonic in distilled water, and they are much happier.
The clones look much better.

How important is water?
I swear, I learn something new every day.
 
MedMonkey

MedMonkey

Active Member
I'm on city water, but it comes out of the tap 500-600ppm and around 7.6ph with high alkalinity. Currently I mix 50/50 with distilled. Using Jack's Pro i'm having similar issues, but it's clear when I mix it up and goes cloudy in my res bucket. The cloudier it gets the higher the ph climbs too. I think it's due to the excessive calcium carbonate in my water, and perhaps some bacterial issue. Not sure what is in yours, but that might be part of the problem.
 
T

trambles

Well-Known Member
I got a well too with about 650ppm and around ph 8. I was getting nutrient lockout so I switched to an RO.
Really though 350ppm isnt that bad, after I add cal/mag to my RO water it's around 300ppm.
You need to figure out what is in your water though, it could have a ton of iron, all calcium, salt, or who knows what else.
 
rob333

rob333

Well-Known Member
HashBucket said:
Water.
Is there anything more important?

I have never worked from a well before. I been doing this a long time; and I've always bee fortunate enough to have water supplied by a municipal utility. That presents its own problems, but it was problems that I was accustomed to.

Now I work from a well. And I have a lot to learn.

My water has over 350 ppm, and a ph approaching 8.

I use Jacks; and mix it in concentrated form to mix as needed in the feed/water buckets. So I mixed up a batch of Jacks. The B side suddenly became milky. I'd never seen milky before ... but, like a big dummy I just used it. The plants started showing signs of Mag deficiency. I added Cal/Mag. No effect.
Then it got so bad that the whole room was dying. Panic mode.
I go through everything ...

Finally, I decide to mix two batches of Part B.
One batch I used well water, as usual.
The other one I used distilled water.

The well side turned out milky with lots of undissolved solids on the bottom.
The distilled side was somewhat cloudy, but clear - and everything was dissolved.

WTF?

Now, I been using distilled for a month, and the plants are just starting to come back.
I almost burned the whole room down.
I've been spraying with Rhizotonic in distilled water, and they are much happier.
The clones look much better.

How important is water?
I swear, I learn something new every day.
Click to expand...
you got something called hard and soft water if your city has hard water well u are pretty much fucked for growing and is best to use bore or rain but if it is soft u are find try running a full nute run with hard water ;)
 
rob333

rob333

Well-Known Member
rob333 said:
you got something called hard and soft water if your city has hard water well u are pretty much fucked for growing and is best to use bore or rain but if it is soft u are find try running a full nute run with hard water ;)
Click to expand...
i either need to filter mine boil or buy spring
 
TintEastwood

TintEastwood

Well-Known Member
With several different nutrient types, I used to have PH issues until I started using RO water. And my local water is pretty darn good.
My grow is small, huge grow I would want to make tap work if I could.


Currently using Jacks - PH very stable and consistent.
My local water PH and TDS would change at random times throughout the year - just another reason to go RO. Consistency.
 
MedMonkey

MedMonkey

Active Member
trambles said:
You need to figure out what is in your water though, it could have a ton of iron, all calcium, salt, or who knows what else.
Click to expand...
Very important point. Where I am the water from the tap has 95-100mg sodium per liter and a bunch of other stuff in the 550-600 or so ppm so I have trouble using very much of it. There's also a bunch of other stuff including herbicides (at very low concentration that's been deemed "safe", but still!).
 
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T

trambles

Well-Known Member
The sodium is no good at all, I wouldnt use water with sodium in it. Might want to invest in an RO. buying bottled water gets expensive and tiresome.
 
Couch_Lock

Couch_Lock

Well-Known Member
water PH is important, much moreso in coco or hydro.....soil has buffers, if u seek good soil......but good water is always beneficial
 
Couch_Lock

Couch_Lock

Well-Known Member
trambles said:
The sodium is no good at all, I wouldnt use water with sodium in it. Might want to invest in an RO. buying bottled water gets expensive and tiresome.
Click to expand...
Zero pitchers remove everything........same as distilled if Ph is about 7, if u want it lower add less then 1/8th teaspoon powdered citric acid to a gallon of tap, or one squeeze of a lemon to a gallon of tap.

not Brita, must be a ZERO pitcher
 
Teag

Teag

Well-Known Member
Couch_Lock said:
Zero pitchers remove everything........same as distilled if Ph is about 7, if u want it lower add less then 1/8th teaspoon powdered citric acid to a gallon of tap, or one squeeze of a lemon to a gallon of tap.

not Brita, must be a ZERO pitcher
Click to expand...
There is no way buying a pitcher is going to be more practical than a RO system. From reading a few 1 star reviews like this one confirmed my suspicions.

"I saw the commercial and ordered this item. After i got it, and found out it only filtered 6 gallons of water, I looked at the replacement filter prices. Wow!!!!! At about $15 for 6 gallons of water, I've gone back to buying the distilled water at the supermarket. But I must say, I have an expensive nice looking water pitcher. "

It apparently starts to smell like dead fish and taste acidic if the filter is bad.
 
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