"City Water" & Organics. BAD IDEA!

[BurnOne]

Just a word of caution for you organic heads out there...
If you are tapped onto a municipal water supply that uses chlorine to kill bacteria in the water, it'll do the same thing to the bacteria (microherd) in your organic food source.
Always bubble your water in an open container (5 gallon bucket) for 24 hours before adding ANYTHING organic to it.

Burn1

 

[Guest]

or you can just cough up the .70 cents it costs for a gallon of distilled water.

 

[BurnOne]

^^^True. But expensive. My little 5' X 5' growroom sometimes took 5 gallons of water twice a week. Figure in gas money and it adds up.
The thing I'm trying to show here is that chlorine is bad for any type of organic growing because it kills bacteria.
Burn1

 

[Suby]

True Dat.
24hrs of bubbling keeps the micros alive

 

[Guest]

So what do you use to bubble the water?

 

[NoNameNoshame]

Let the city water site over night...clorine will vap off...

 

[sproutco]

Chlorine is not bad. Plants actually require a small amount of chlorine to grow. One good thing chlorine does is in the Hill reaction where plants actually split water. Anothe role of chlorine is the opening of the stomates or pores of the plant. What would be bad for your bacteria herd or whatever would be "free" chlorine because it is charged different and is an oxidizer. The quantity of "free" chlorine in city water is quite low. It many only be .5 parts per million. The water may still have pathogens in it although very few. If the water treatment plant increased chlorine for the water to kill all pathogens it would be offensive like a swimming pool. Free chlorine will attack organic matter before it kills anything. Once it does it is "used up" and harmless. If you are an organic gardener the demand (term used in water treatment for how much free chlorine is required to sterilize the water) in your water would be extreme because of all the organic matter in the water in your tea. The chlorine would be rendered harmless in quite a hurry with 99.99% of your bacteria still alive. I don't think city water is that big a deal.

 

[PazVerdeRadical]

i think watering with distilled water is not so good since distilled water has poor electrical conductivity and actually ends up limiting the creation of new good life in the soil, it can also lead to a nutrient lock-out. distilled water is not even real water

i always let the tap water i use to water seat on a big bucket, it gets direct sun-light too, which always helps with the water quality.

sproutco, that's pretty interesting to say the least. ty for sharing.

peace.

 

[BurnOne]

I use well water (no chlorine). I still like to bubble it for a while before adding organics to dissolve oxygen into it. Oxygen is life.
Burn1

 

[Suby]

So what do you use to bubble the water?

I use a fishtank airpump with an airstone attached and toss that in my 5 gallon pail full of water, 24hrs later I add tea ingredients.

I heard some places use something called chloramine (spell?) to sanitize city water, apparently bubbling does nothing to evap it, only direct sunlight will degrade it.

Sub's

 

[tankgunner]

city water is by far better for drinking think about it.bottled water has most all "minerals" removed with reverse osmosis and so on. it doesnt taste as good but it is for sure better for you. as for our plants i would just as someone has said let it sit overnight or a couple days to let the chlorine leave. jmo

 

[jaykush]

i use mountain spring water instead, they LOVE It specially in a good guano tea.

 

[Guest423]

Let the city water site over night...clorine will vap off...

exactly, i've used city water with organics for about 10 yrs now with no problems

 

[sproutco]

I use well water (no chlorine). I still like to bubble it for a while before adding organics to dissolve oxygen into it. Oxygen is life.
Burn1

Sometimes oxygen is not life. Oxygen is actually toxic to living things. In plants, they protect themselves by using a system called superoxide dismutases or sod for short. This may also function in humans but I am no human surgeon. Sod in plants requires copper and zinc to function. This prevents plants from "rusting like a nail". Sometimes you hear antioxidant...this would prevent damage by oxygen. I too use well water. I took my hand at using chlorine to sterilize water (hence why I have knowledge about this). I have had poor germination rates and blame my water containing pathogens for this. Great thread to start. Made everybody think. Sprout

 

[PazVerdeRadical]

... I too use well water. I took my hand at using chlorine to sterilize water (hence why I have knowledge about this). I have had poor germination rates and blame my water for this. Great thread to start. Made everybody think. Sprout

hello sproutco, pardon me but i don't understand you well, what do you mean: that you have poor germination rates because of well-water not treated or because you treated it with chloride? sorry if the answer is obvious but english is not my first language and sometimes i have lapses
thanks.

 

[sproutco]

^^ Using chlorine to kill pathogens in the water that may attack the small seedlings.

 

[Suby]

Sproutco is right, we get old as a result of oxidation being it's the fuel our body burns.
When I germinate seeds I use a sloution of plain water and hydrogen peroxide, it just degrades to plain water with a little daylight before using it and wipes out pathogens.

 

[BurnOne]

Bacteria die without oxygen (anerobic). That's why guano tea stinks if you don't stir it up and get air to it. Dead bacteria die and stink. [See also morning breath] LOL
Burn1

 

[vonforne]

I have had sucess with a charcol filter from HD for 99.00. and let the water sit for about 36 hrs.

 

[Guest423]

another cheap method that works surprisingly well is getting one of them filters that screw right on your faucet, i got mine for like $18.