needs some water advice.... my ppm is 450

[Tynehead Tom]

okay, backstory. I grew for the better part of 20 years indoors and out. I'm not a garden guru , but I was always happy, plants were happy and generally had a good handle on things in soiless mix and simple hydro systems. I haven't grown indoors for over a decade now and several years ago I moved to a quiet rural lifestyle way out in the sticks. I have well water and I also have bottled water that is treated with reverse osmosis/ozonation. It reads on my Hannah TDS 601 at 10 parts per million.


my well water is loaded with minerals and leaves chalky white powder were ever it is left to evaporate. It reads 450ppm on the Hannah tds 601 and PH reading is 7.2


I'm having a hard time deciding which water to use and how to adapt it to my GH flora micro/bloom feeding regimen.


so in my situation, would you use the RO water or the 450ppm well water. I have friends locally who use their well water and PH down but it seems that 450 ppm is silly high. I grew on treated/chlorinated city water all those years and am starting to see some problems with my plants "just" starting to show here and there and want to make sure I'm not phucking things up LOL


I would prefer to use the free well water so any advice on treating it or running lucas formula GH flora line would be awesome. (I'm not switching nutes right now)

 

[_tessarecting]

RO for indoor hydro, outdoor I dont think its going to matter if youre in soil.

They also make a hard water micro if you dont filter.

 

[Tynehead Tom]

only problem with using RO is it's a long fricken way to refill those bottles LOL , about 70 miles each way and I don't want to invest in a system to produce it myself.


looking at my bottle of Micro, it's not for hardwater, it's the regular.
in my greenhouse/outdoor I just use collected rain water from a gravity feed 250 gallon collection tank. I generally just water with no nutes or adjustments as everything is in my soil mix other than top dressings applied during flowering.
I must admit I am a newb to using RO water but will do my homework right now

 

[_tessarecting]

For 200 I got a stealthro200 that does 100g a day with my water, worth it, especially if you are drinking the water too

 

[Tynehead Tom]

thx tessarecting , I'll look into that.
I've been using the RO water and was getting some low PH readings so I fed last feed with the well water and nutes , ph came to 6.8 and I went with it. It may have been an error LOL
it's water only feed/flush today so I'm going to feed with RO and see what my run off is telling me.

 

[johnkneefive]

I live out in sticks to .. I have same water 420ppm-450ppm 7.2ph .. Depending on the season .. I need to use RO water or the plants produce very crappy purple stems /very small buds / then the bugs move in and try and finish them off ... You can fight em to the finish but it's really not worth using all them Chems on meds .. I don't sell so I need the best tasting buds I can produce.. I finally convinced my nieghbour to switch to ro after 3 yrs of seeing him fight his plants .. But old dogs are hard to teach new tricks .. He's a veteran grower , he started collecting rain water for his past run and he will never use the well water again he's says this is his best crop in many many yrs.. He actually came asking me to order him a RO system.. For the summer in case of a drought .. Last year was bad.. Lol


So just to save you some grief . Get Ro or use rain water you can add abit of well water to buffer it so it phs easier but wouldn't use it for much more .. Definitely don't drink it..
Peace

Edit .. With RO my plants stay healthy all the way to finish .. Never see bugs . Never spray nothing on em .. I just move air

 

[Granger2]

Mix well and RO. -granger

 

[Tynehead Tom]

thanx for the input fellas
Mixing the well water with RO is exactly what I'm doing now
basically using the well water to balance the PH and it's working perfect!
plants are happy, I'm happy and I learned sumthin !

 

[PerfectGrower]

The nutrients you use should also help with you buffering of your solution. If they're not....you should maybe try something else (wink wink)

 

[Tynehead Tom]

howdy PerfectGrower, thanx for chiming in. Looking forward to your debut in Canada.

I live way off the beaten path and its very difficult to source the materials to keep the garden running without driving several hours. Anyhow, when I got a buddy who was coming to visit to grab me supplies, I neglected to request GH micro for hardwater.

Anyhow, what I've got going now is working just fine and my plants are rocking right along. Now that I am running at full strength feeding, I am using only straight RO water now with 8ml micro/16ml bloom per 4 liters and have not needed to top up with the well water to move the PH. I will watch closely for cal/mag deficiency as they girls flower and Epsom if needed but I mix both xxfine and fine dolomite lime in my soilless mix so should be okay.
Last time I grew indoors I was on really good quality big city water and things were much simpler.