Rain water and tap water discussion

[blondie]

Show everybody your plants! I remember you Blondie back last year when you were crying about your sick plants in the infirmary. You were using rain or RO and wasn't adding any Cal-mag. I told you what to do and you got pissed off and said you were going to ********* or THCtalk with your problems and was leaving ICmag. I've been growing weed for 50 years and have been in the horticulture and landscape business for many of those years and with only one eye! If you want to grow weed you need to open your mind to methods already tried and true.

Not sure what you are talking about. Not me though. I’ve never used rain or ro and never threatened to leave this site and only thing that I get pissed off about is shit like this. Ive never had the displeasure of dealing with you until now. Whatever your beef is check your attitude at the door. Instead of attacking and trying to prove your superiority maybe you can add some wisdom here.If not stop posting. Nobody wants to read this bullshit from you.

 

[big315smooth]

we been thinking bout collect rain water up at friends camp and firing up few lights its way cheaper than digging a well. your name got me singing blondie songs haha my brain fried.

 

[blondie]

we been thinking bout collect rain water up at friends camp and firing up few lights its way cheaper than digging a well. your name got me singing blondie songs haha my brain fried.

Sweet......! Fire up another my friend! Well is wayyyy expensive and not a guarantee you will have good water. I’m not sure costs of a huge collection storage system but for the price of a well seems you got lots of room.

 

[blondie]

Made a start today on gathering rain. Filled a few five gallon containers with snow and moved a 50 gallon container Outside. It’s a start. Definitely an interesting topic here. Hopefully others will pick up some wisdom from here.

 

[exploziv]

What about if the well is already dug? Would you go for it or still think about collecting rain?

 

[Three Berries]

What about if the well is already dug? Would you go for it or still think about collecting rain?

Depends on the well water. Using my hard stuff you can throw your EC pen out the window as it's 450ppm to start.

 

[Three Berries]

I've had Davis weather stations for over 30 years keeping track of the weather at my location. Haven't always ha the means to collect into the computer but have for the last 25 years.

On 2/1/22 the software could no longer read the data base. Turns out you can only have 25 years worth of data per station name.

But I have been keeping hand written rainfall records for over 30 years where I live in East Central Illinois.

 

[HempKat]

Thanks Hempcat, here's a photo of my two dogs, I miss them a lot they both died. I have a therapy service dog now.

They seem like they were good dogs, sorry for your loss, I know how real the loss of beloved pets can be. Like beloved people the pain never really goes away, you just learn to cope with it. Given your vision disability and that you have a therapy service dog it's not a shocker that some occasional hair turns up in your grow. I often wonder if the people who criticize such things are really so much better or do they just carefully scrutinize their pics and delete any showing they're no better then anyone else just out of an irrational sense of shame for being just like almost anyone else?

 

[HempKat]

As it so happens I stumbled across a video on YouTube today that has me questioning just how good rainwater might be. The main focus of the video was how when testing for something else researchers were discovering fairly high concentrations of microscopic fragments of plastics found in rainwater. Now rather then linking the video I went into google and did a search for plastic in rainwater and found the site I'll link below that talks about a group of researchers who accidentally discovered high concentrations of plastics in rainwater. They first discovered this in 2020 but point out that plastic pollution has only gotten worse since then. The most concerning part to me was that they found the plastic in rainwater in "samples from national parks and wilderness areas across Colorado". I had previously stated the belief that rainwater in more rural areas was likely fairly clean and safe to use which is largely based on my belief that the evaporation process would naturally render the rainwater mostly clean especially the further you get from pollution centers but now after seeing that video and reading the page linked below I'm very skeptical. Obviously when you're talking microscopic fragments of plastic it's difficult to identify where exactly the plastic first got in the rainwater but the story below at one point suggests it can be travelling locked up in the rain, across continents. Now there is nothing in the video I saw or the link below that makes it clear that microplastics in rainwater has any impact on plant health. However knowing that rainwater has plastics in it and that it can travel across continents I find it difficult to keep believing there is any rainwater anywhere that is clean. Plus if plastics are making it's way into rainwater and travelling long distances then who knows what else is making it's way into rainwater and being spread across the globe. I do know from a different report on plastic pollution it is believed that virtually every living creature be it man or animal, has some amount of plastic build up from various sources.

https://earthsky.org/earth/microplastic-rain-western-us/

 

[shakatime]

plastic in the clouds is a trippy thought

 

[Three Berries]

Nano particles as abrasives. I don't think it would hurt a soil grow. As I understand it they are found in everything, including your cells.

 

[Creeperpark]

Ok, here are 6 rainwater plants I started from seed and are growing now. All the same soil and water from seed to now. I'm using Fox Farms Ocean Forest Potting soil and rainwater only. No fertilizer. Here's how it works. FFOFs main ingredient is composted forest humus and has a pH of 7. When I add the rainwater with a natural pH of 5.5 it drops the soil pH from 7 to 6.2 pH. Complete nutrient release using rainwater without a buffer. You will never get the same results using tap water because of the buffering tap water does. Tap water can kill the plant or a least cause leaf bronzing after a few months in a container. !!!!! If you use tap you have to use acid but with using rain no need for acid ever!

 

[Creeperpark]

In my final conclusion on this thread, I will say. I haven't seen one "live" Tap water plant above as a comparison to rainwater plants. You people that are talking about this subject are not putting anything on the table to represent your personal views. When you find a link on the internet you are using someone else's words and not your own. That tells me you don't know personally what you are talking about. I will close by saying this.

Never listen to a poor man tell you how to be rich, because he may just send you down the wrong road! ​

 

[Three Berries]

My well water is usually 450 ppm or so and a pH of 7.6. After a three day rain it's down to 250 ppm and 6.5pH. The ground is pretty saturated with the farm drain tiles running good.

 

[blondie]

Ive been working on gathering rainwater and one of my downspouts is perfect but the water has a yellow tint to it. Assuming it’s gutter splooge. I didn’t want to use it. I wish I would have as I ran out of snow and used tap instead of the yellow water. Check the attached. Other image is my leaf a day or two after tap.... looks like PH issue to me? Good news it rained again and this time I was ready and got non yellow rainwater. Seems I am one of those who’s tap is not the best for weed. What do you guys think.. use the water or dump it?? it’s much much easier to get rain from the spout.

 

[Creeperpark]

My tap water is 500ppm with a pH of 9 and just a little will really hurt my plants. I throw the first rainwater away because the dirty roof has collected dust. After the first rain, the water will be good for a long time during the rain Season. The water you have in the bucket is perfect and will do good. The leaf bronzing may be caused by lock-out because of alkalinity. All my rain buckets are full from recent rains so I am good with about 200 gallons stored with the rainy season still to come. I buffer my rainwater with 10 ml of cal-mag to 5 gallons of rainwater and let it set to stabilize for "synthetic soils" and only "pure rainwater" for organic soils.

 

[troutman]

Rainwater should not be collected if it comes from a roof cause the roofing materials are probbaly toxic.
If the rainwater was collected in the open away from man made structures it should would be ok. You
may have to raise the pH a little seeing most rainwater is somewhat acidic.

 

[gizmo666]

My tap water

I can understand folks saying they can't grow with tap water but as you can see I don't have that problem

 

[gizmo666]

My tap water is 500ppm with a pH of 9 and just a little will really hurt my plants. I throw the first rainwater away because the dirty roof has collected dust. After the first rain, the water will be good for a long time during the rain Season. The water you have in the bucket is perfect and will do good. The leaf bronzing may be caused by lock-out because of alkalinity. All my rain buckets are full from recent rains so I am good with about 200 gallons stored with the rainy season still to come. I buffer my rainwater with 10 ml of cal-mag to 5 gallons of rainwater and let it set to stabilize for "synthetic soils" and only "pure rainwater" for organic soils.

I can understand now you quoting you can't grow with your tap water
That's a dirty/hard supply you get 500 ppm dam!
But as you now see I can grow with tap water
All my diary's are open the links are there so photos are there for everyone and all are grown with tap water
as I once said before it depends on your water supply it differs vastly in different countries and areas
Best to check it first
The same applies for rainwater
Peace

 

[tobedetermined]

I can understand now you quoting you can't grow with your tap water
That's a dirty/hard supply you get 500 ppm dam!
But as you now see I can grow with tap water

You ain't alone, giz. Our tap water comes from Lake Ontario. It usually is 7.0 - 7.6 with an average ec of .36. I just filter out the chloramines with a Small Boy.