Trying to understand my water

[Boscoe]

Don't use the filtered water. The RV one is almost certainly ion exchange. Lockouts will follow.

You are in soil, so the ec nearing 8, might be fine. It's presumably Calcium and Magnesium, and many soil feeds miss them out. The pH is low for such a thing, but you may well of broke it using it in distilled water. You need to get a handle on that. Distilled is more like 6.5 as you can't get a lot more air exposure, than vapourising your water. Apply that logic to your taps EC, and the pH meter is dead.

Check your feed for the presence of Ca + Mg, because your water might fix that omission nicely.

Ooh, good info! Thank you! I recalibrated the pens, the EC pen was fine and the PH pen was only off by .1. I retested everything and what I found is that my readings on the raw tap were pretty close to identical to my first test (7.6ph 0.87ec), but the distilled came back as 6.0ph 0ec, so I'm guessing my previous numbers were user error.

I retested the filtered except that the air pump has been off for 2 days and got 8.0ph 0.7ec, so virtually the same as before, maybe the intense level of aeration accounts for the difference in the previous test?

I also made some new filtered in a glass rather than putting it in the bucket so the air stone never touched it and other than the chlorine level, it was actually identical to the raw tap. So it seems like the air stone is definitely doing things. The stone IS brand new, tho I did let it soak away from the bucket for a few hours before putting it in, but maybe I need to run it with the pump for a couple more days before it's safe to use with feed water?

But based on your info, I won't use the RV filter. I'll try bubbling a bucket of raw tap for 24 hours and see what the chlorine level is like and verify if the stone is causing problems. I checked the water quality report from the water utility co. and they're definitely using some chloramines, so bubbling won't help that, but depending on the ratio of chlorine/chloramine I'll at least get a sense of how much chlorine can be removed with aeration. Worst case I could still cut the tap with 50% distilled.

 

[Boscoe]

I always run RO now. Have for almost 20 years. Just dont drain into cast iron floor drains and you will be good. Newer plumbing has pvc sewer line. You can run the drain through a gravel limestone container to neutralize the ph.

Can you catch rainwater runoff from a roof via gutters?

I don't get enough rainfall here to maintain a reliable store of water unless I invested in a storage tank or something. I don't even HAVE gutters! lol I'm just a hobby guy with a few plants.

 

[Ca++]

To call a water purifier a filter, is a common misnomer. Ion exchange isn't filtration seen in the image of removal. It's swapping useful elements such as calcium, for better tasting one's. Typically salt. Now salt might help your dinner, but your plants would rather you didn't do that.

2ppm chlorine is a little high for our taste, but in hydro it's nice, and soil neutralises it rapidly. If this is living soil with no additional feed to be supplied, then maybe it's an issue. I don't think I need to talk about that though.

The water report is always nice to see, but chloramines are the products of chlorine doing something. Showing it's presence was useful, until it reached your soil

 

[Boscoe]

Yeah, I bought the purifier because it was the only one I could find that claimed to remove chloramines and I'd seen a couple of other growers mention they used it. I'm not doing living soil or anything like that, just bottled nutes. My plan was to re-inoculate the soil every week with Recharge, so I think any harm the chlorine might do would be minimal.

I just saw this report where researchers found that the main issue with chlorine is that it'll kill some of the beneficials, but that it actually isn't a serious problem because the bennies reproduce so fast it's not catastrophic and also the chlorine attaches to the soil so only the first couple of inches are affected anyway. They said that in order to kill microbes six inches deep would require 65ppm of chlorine. They further stated that 5ppm only affected the first half inch of soil. So clearly I've been worrying about nothing. AS USUAL. lol

1548 – Impact of Watering Lawns and Gardens with Chlorinated Water – PlantTalk Colorado

planttalk.colostate.edu

 

[Boscoe]

Okay, NOW I'm finding info that humic acid will dechlorinate water. I already have some Wallace Organic Wonder humic/fulvic that I could add to the water. Plus, the nute line I'll be using includes a humic/fulvic component AND Recharge also has some in it. Sigh. Wish I'd found all this before spending $60 on the purifier. lol.

Shit, maybe I'll just use it to make drinking water instead of buying mountain spring. Get my $60 out of it one way or another!

 

[Cannabis Critically]

If you are using mineral salts and not doing living soil, I would be concerned about the high pH (iron).

 

[xtsho]

The amount of chlorine/chloramines in tap water is insignificant and will not harm your plants. People will argue about that for eternity but the reality is that people have been using tap water with chlorine/chloramines for decades without any issues. I'm one of them.

 

[Creeperpark]

Well, the distilled PH was 7.1, so that's at least close. I agree the EC should be zero. I need to test that again because that's just weird. But I have two EC testers, the Apera that I just bought and an old cheap-ass Ubante that I've had for ages and the readings were pretty close. Both the PH and EC pens are brand new Apera and were calibrated with the included solutions, but who knows what quality control is like.

With the filtered, it's even worse than you think because that water has been sitting for a couple days with an airstone in it. Maybe the airstone itself is messing with the PH? I think I'll run my tests again and this time I won't put the airstone in it.

Thanks for the insights!

If you are taking readings of a liquid with less than 100 ppm you will get false readings. This is because the meters work using electroconductivity and have to have something to bounce off of to measure. If there's only 20 or 50 parts per million in the liquid there's not enough for a accurate measurement.

 

[Creeperpark]

I love RO but I don't like fucking with it anymore. So I just use rain water and its fresh this time of the year. When I dip in the bucket after a fresh rain the water is usually only 9 to 17 ppm. One thing you have to be careful with using rainwater. Never mix the cal mag first before the base nutrients or you will have problems with the pH. Mix micro, then grow, then bloom and lastly cal mag. Thats all it takes with rain water.

 

[spacetraveller]

You could try lowering your tap water ec using highly acidic peat moss. This method does not waste water like an ro, though collecting peat may not be environmentally acceptable! In saying that, it works like a natural cation exchange resin. I use an old aquarium canister filter and place stockings full of peat inside, then rotate the water through the bomb. You know the peat is exhausted when the outflow ph matches your reserve tank. Easy as! Buy best quality peat with a super low pH for best results.
IMO, as a further tip, always use your airstone, because it will outgas the water of CO2, and give a proper and accurate reading of pH.
Peace