To use reverse osmosis or to not?

So as stated, I’m just curious how many people use reverse osmosis systems to draw water for their grow. I bought one when my ppm are only 160 out the tap, an now I’m debating on the purpose of if I should even use one. So I’m wondering how many people use tap water and who uses reverse osmosis and why? Albeit crazy high ppm out of the tap is understandable for reasoning.

Depending on the style you are growing depends on if RO is necessary. But with PPM of 160 I would run it if it was under 70 I'm not sure I would. Keep in mind when using RO you will need to run a cal mag.

half the grow in ro and half in tap water

Depends on the tap water, my tap water at home is 105-110 ppm and 7ph.. perfect. plants are super happy. No reason to make stuff harder than it needs to be

If you have the means to collect it in sufficient quantity I have found that rain water is supreme for soil growing. If doing hydro go with R/O water.

Willie_wonder said:

an now I’m debating on the purpose of if I should even use one

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if you are new to hydro, use RO. it eliminates one variable as being a potential problem. as I got more grows, i slowly went from well/RO to all well nowadays.

I use straight tap but it comes out at 50ppm. Im on a fairly new water plant that has lots of water testing results available on my utility companies site. Its gone well for almost 2 years now straight out of the tap or garden hose. I hook a hose up to the bathroom sink in the winter when the garden hose is frozen.

160 could be high or could be fine, it really depends on whats in it. You should look for reports from the city and consider doing your own testing. You can get some pretty extensive water test kits on amazon for a reasonable price and theres places you can send water samples.
Using RO eliminates having to do that and like rky said, its better to eliminate that variable when youre just starting out. Just one less thing to worry about.
I got an RO unit and a collapseable water holding tank when I first started and used it until I felt good enough with the rest that I could learn about the stuff in my water. After doing the research and testing I decided to try my next grow with tap water and it went fine.

I run my ro system in hydro. Soil just use tap and my tap has around 200ppm.

170ppm from tap. I'm hydro and fought too many ph swings back at my first grow. Made a quick change to RO to test/trial and never had a PH swing issue since.

My Name is Mike said:

170ppm from tap. I'm hydro and fought too many ph swings back at my first grow. Made a quick change to RO to test/trial and never had a PH swing issue since.

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Exactly why I use ro for hydro. That and the microbes that sometimes come from tap water.