Analyize this municipal water quality report....

[Hawk]

This is a municipal water quality report. This 2006 report is the most current information I could find. How does it look? I'm a newbie and I hear about Parts Per Million in tap water. Is that info on this page? All I know is that this water is fairly hard. I'm trying to figure out what water (tap, distilled, bottled drinking, etc) should be used for watering.

thanks

 

[Hawk]

Do I take it that info is useless?

Is there a low cost way (like drops or something) to measure the ppm of my tap water?

 

[Navigator330]

yea.... you can use a water hardness test kit for a pool or aqaurium.

 

[guineapig]

Do not use distilled water, because usually the pH is way too high (alkaline)....

Usually you want to get "Spring" water, make sure the jug says "spring" water.....you can also use "Reverse Osmosis" water, which is the purest water available, however i find it most useful to mix Reverse Osmosis (RO) water with Spring water......depending on the quality of your tap water, you could also mix a small amount of tap water with a larger quantity of RO or spring water.....after you prepare your water, mix in your nutrients.....this should bring the pH down into an acceptable range (around 6.2), but if you need to bring the pH down even further i suggest using food grade citric acid (available from many different sources, available at health food stores for a very low price...)

kind regards from guineapig

 

[Hawk]

Thanks for the replies.

 

[wygram]

In regards to the spring and drinking water, you should watch our for sources with high salt (NaCl) content. This is in the water naturally or added for human consumption, but is killer for plant cells.

The water report should have other pages which usually list pH, calcium, and magnesium together in one table. There report should also tell you whether your water company uses chlorine and/or chloramines to treat water.

 

[Hawk]

That was the only data in the report. It does list chlorine at 1.4 ppm average. I don't see pH, calcium or mag though.

 

[MynameStitch]

Just make sure when you use RO water or distilled you make sure you have micronutrients handy..... like cal mag, sensi cal, earthjuice.... stuff like that; RO and distilled has no micronutrients which rob your plants and this you must suppliment them with everytime you water your plants........

 

[Chiefsmokingbud]

Do not use distilled water, because usually the pH is way too high (alkaline)....

Usually you want to get "Spring" water, make sure the jug says "spring" water.....you can also use "Reverse Osmosis" water, which is the purest water available, however i find it most useful to mix Reverse Osmosis (RO) water with Spring water......depending on the quality of your tap water, you could also mix a small amount of tap water with a larger quantity of RO or spring water.....after you prepare your water, mix in your nutrients.....this should bring the pH down into an acceptable range (around 6.2), but if you need to bring the pH down even further i suggest using food grade citric acid (available from many different sources, available at health food stores for a very low price...)

kind regards from guineapig

You sure about distilled water. Every distilled water i've ever used tested out at 7.0 which is neutral and good to use with PH dropping nutes.

Agreed what stich said all the micro nutes are removed and you Will have to use some cal/mag especially in hydro. Soil is a little more forgiving on that aspect. I've never used spring water but from what i've heard that can be a double edged sword with minerals.

 

[Hawk]

I purchased a ppm meter and tested my tap water at 395ppm. Too high for use, right?

The distilled I have that's been sitting in a 2.5gal plastic jug for months is about 6.0. My (Internet) research as revealed that distilled water is often slightly acidic because it absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. Just what I've read--not what I KNOW--but many sources make the same claim concerning the pH of distilled water. My own distilled water supports that notion. Whatever the case, I don't think ANY water can be assumed to be a certain pH unless you've just created it in your laboratory under controlled atmospheric conditions.

Until I learn something better I'm going to use distilled and correct it's pH as needed. Stitch, I did just pick up a Technaflora nute kit that includes a product called MagiCal (among a bunch of other things). Hopefully I can figure out how to use these products before my plants die. [first time grower <---- ]