Tap Water Usable?

I have city water. Haven't tested anything in it. Right now i'm just using some distilled store bought water.

is peeing on ur plant healthy?

^^^ prob not! Dehumidifier water is also great! Make sure it has been ran through a few times and cleaned. Good to go! Rain water and Snow rock!

Since the first post i made on this thread some things have changed...

Ive bought an oakton ph/tds tester. Should've gone with EC instead of TDS but oh well...

My water comes out at a surprisingly clean 80 PPM out of the tap. Ive heard of it being as high as 600 sometimes. When that high, you should definitely get a Reverse Osmosis filter. Or just go to one of those water dispensers and get your water there in 5 gallon jugs. That may work depending on how big your garden is.

I then leave the water out in a 40 gallon reservoir, where it is cycled with a pump. I leave the air stones off until it is time to water. I also use an aquarium heater to heat the water to a cool 68 degrees. After one day (24 hours, sometimes as few as 18, but usually not less than that) the TDS goes down to about 60. Not bad, about a 25% reduction, but I dont know if that works exponentially or not. Also, when I pour the water out at first from the tap I can DEFINITELY smell chlorine. After the 24 hours, its gone.

Ever since I started doing this, and although I have made other changes, as well, I have noticed a BIG difference with my plants...

Happy growing!

I try not to get caught up on all this stuff. I just keep it short and simple.But I do love to read different opinions.

I use tap water right outta the faucet and right in the soil and hydro. I am doing both. Neither seem to mind my local tap water.
I do pH balance it within the hour after using it though. BUt other than that, I have zero problems.

I'm glad that I've just been watering my 7 plants with the tap water I've been drinking from the days before that were sitting around my room..... now I know that I should keep doing that. my plants are all looking healthy and are about 12/14 days old.

", I do notice that after a few hours there are bubbles all over the inside of the jug. I thump the side and they float to the top. When I stop seeing bubbles form inside the jug, I use it."

Exactly what i do to the letter, even down to the thumping the sides after 2 days to make bubbles go away. Even using old milk jugs!

hydrotech364 said:

If ya go to the walmart fish section they have test strips that check for 5 conditions of the water,including ph and nitrates.They also check hardness and overall health spectrum.If a fish can live in it ,its definitely safe for the plants!!!

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Fish probably arent the best examples, since they seem to love to collect heavy metals like mercury and cadmium

Apparently not, it's got way too much of what it needs.

amd said:

in a pinch, one could use declorinator for aquariums, ijust wouldnt use it all the time

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My initials are AMD and I was about to say the same thing till I saw you say it
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Weird...

dknob said:

just let it sit out, chlorine is no good for anything alive.

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Plants actually desire to uptake small amounts of chlorine. The issue with untreated water is too much chlorine and/or other possible undesirables or with a hydro setup being unable to know precisely what you are feeding due to not knowing mineral composition of the tap water and issues with too hard or soft ph.
In a well buffered soil grow a good 3 stage filter that allows enough exposure to catalytic carbon can remove both chlorine and chloramine as well as most other heavy metals, this is plenty enough for good soils unless the ph is well out of range of the soil's buffering capabilities.