Wanna Ask The Old Farts A Question?

[Gold123]

What i know for distiled water is that it is pH neutral untill it makes contact with air, and it has nothing in it (we dont even use it for mixing with home made alchohol just becouse of that) and by mixing it ~50/50 i think i lower the hardness by half and still have good stuff, i just dont know if it is chlorine or chloramine thats in it.
Another thing that bothers me is that i store my whater (when i dilute it) in a bottle in dark, but a closed bottle, can this be bad for my plants?

It will lose the dissolved oxygen, put an aquarium air stone in the bottle for a day before you are going to use it, made a dramatic difference in my grow.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

Distilled water will have no chlorine or any other chlorinates in it. Just the act of pouring it is going to reinvigorate the water oxygen wise, no real need to bubble your water, although some do it anyway. Another method of introducing dissolved oxygen is to put in ~30ml of 3% H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide from grocery store). You can also use H2O2 to drive out chlorine from tap water so you can use it immediately, although it is my belief that tap water is fine to use right out of the tap, unless your water co uses chloromine instead of chlorine. In that case don't use the water at all.

 

[Gold123]

Distilled water will have no chlorine or any other chlorinates in it. Just the act of pouring it is going to reinvigorate the water oxygen wise, no real need to bubble your water, although some do it anyway. Another method of introducing dissolved oxygen is to put in ~30ml of 3% H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide from grocery store). You can also use H2O2 to drive out chlorine from tap water so you can use it immediately, although it is my belief that tap water is fine to use right out of the tap, unless your water co uses chloromine instead of chlorine. In that case don't use the water at all.

My water co uses chloramines and I add 30ml/gal 3% h2o2 and bubble it for a day or 2 and the chlorine is gone when I test it. You can get a swimming pool chlorine test kit for $5 at Wallys or Target.
Just pouring or agitating the water gets some o2 dissolved back in but using an air stone will saturate the water completely with as much o2 as it can hold.

 

[Fat J]

Hmm... these posts have made me curious. I was wondering if any1 has seen sidexside runs of chlorinated/non-chlorinated trays? I use tap water (water co uses chloramine - most in the US do) it usually gets 2 bubble about 12 hours b4 use (got a 75gal resi and a fat airstone) I have had wonderful yields and results, never used a filter or distilled water. I mean my water is like 160 ppm outta the tap so its pretty hard, but i never have had problems that I could attribute to it. What real harm does chlorine/chloramine do, and since I use fully chleated nutes. Is it really worth the big $$$ for a RO unit?

Thanks in advance ;-) Keep bein old n stinky dudes.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

Gold123, If you do some looking you will find some information concerning DO. It has been proven that H2O2 will increase the level of DO over what an airstone could ever do.

H2O2 drives out chlorine, but the chloromines cannot be gotten rid of like that.
Your test will show lock of chlorine, but it isn't testing for NH2Cl.

Chloromines used in water is a growing thing, but MOST water companies still use free chlorine instead of chloromines.
Chloromione is bound to ammonia. Ammonia is probably the culprit for doing plant harm.

 

[Billy Burroughs]

FATJ i wouldnt buy anything in fact if your water company doesnt use chlorine i wouldnt even waste my time bubbling it there is no way of getting rid of chloramine theres an old wise tale claiming it can be done with hydrogen peroxide but i've never seen any kinda scientific data on this so i'm going to go with the numbers and what i know and a reading of what'd you say 160 something thats not hard bro lol try 800+ thats hard water bro welcome to the mineral rich desert and it's very hard water gotta love vegas my waters so hard it doesnt even register on a test that goes up to 500 ppm as soon as it hits the water it turns to that color i've been told by some local hydro stores it's typically about 700-800 ppm for hardness so an RO here is imparative i've tried growing without one and even in dirt it's not possible not with water this hard
sounds like you run hydro so i wouldnt suggest buying anything less than a merlin high output RO any of these smaller units are going to sky rocket your water and sewer bill for instance when i first started i had a 100 GPD RO which the cops left so i still got it but im still buying a new merlin 5 minutes to fill 5 gallons pfft with that 100 GPD RO it takes about 2-2 1/2 hours to fill 5 gallons and at the time i was using it i'd have to fill 4 5 gallon containers once a week and just my water bill alone was 125-150 dollars a month after the merlin it dropped back down to the 10 dollars a month it should have been so they pay for themselves plain and simple i mean them small units waste more water than they retrieve because its so small andwhat not it only allows whatever smal amount that squeezes through the rest good water or not still goes down the drain and they're nopt cheap you can get a merlin for 500 bucks thats what i paid for mine they were asking 900 got it 4 500 atm they got one on the ruduced rack one they used at the shop for a demonstration so im snaggin that fucker already got it sitting in the back for me i was there buying RR's and asked the owner if that was cool and he said sure so why not

 

[HempKat]

I have had wonderful yields and results, never used a filter or distilled water.

Well for this I would offer one of the most classic pieces of Old Fart advice around. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

 

[stagger lee]

does H2O2 have any bad effects on organic soil? Sorry if we just covered that mind is waundering~!

 

[Gold123]

does H2O2 have any bad effects on organic soil? Sorry if we just covered that mind is waundering~!

If 1oz 3%/gal then no. Is used straight it will kill beneficial microbes and burn roots.

 

[Fat J]

Well for this I would offer one of the most classic pieces of Old Fart advice around. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Well, you always wanna squeeze more outta a big power bill... but yeah, id rather not fix it, im lazy and cheap, glad i asked.

Also, dude with the fill rates on cheap RO units - WOW, had no idea they were that slow and wasteful, was close to buyin a small cheapo. I have a 75G resi, thats like a whole day 2 fill let alone the water bill. I dunno why I thought 160-180 was high, prolly cuz I used 2 live in a spot with 90ppm base.

Thanks as always, this thread is uber helpful ^.^

 

[HempKat]

Well, you always wanna squeeze more outta a big power bill... but yeah, id rather not fix it, im lazy and cheap, glad i asked.

Also, dude with the fill rates on cheap RO units - WOW, had no idea they were that slow and wasteful, was close to buyin a small cheapo. I have a 75G resi, thats like a whole day 2 fill let alone the water bill. I dunno why I thought 160-180 was high, prolly cuz I used 2 live in a spot with 90ppm base.

Thanks as always, this thread is uber helpful ^.^

Well in my opinion the best way to squeeze more out of a big power bill is to find ways to make things more efficient. A simple one which most people do, is to coordinate your lights on time with night since night is usually cooler. Doing that should mean you don't need to work as hard to cool the room and so you save some money there. Then there is the style of grow, what sort of training you do or don't do, how many plants you grow, etc and these things help determine how efficiently you make use of the space and light you have to work with. Growing indoors for example it's really not practical to grow marijuana the way it's meant to grow in nature as a big bushy plant. Sure they look nice and have some big buds near the top and a big cola but unless you throw a whole bunch of light (meaning multiple HIDs) at it, it'll never be like an outdoor plant. At the size most marijuana plants grow to in nature if you grew it that way indoors you'd only be able to get one maybe two under a 1000W lamp. If you grow them more suited to indoors you should be able to grow at least 10 good sized bushes under a 1000W. Or you could go with the one or two plants but do a ScrOG or you could grow about 60 colas on a stick going with a SOG style.

What you'll find though is there is a limit to what you can squeeze out of a light and whatever way you go will net you roughly the same in the end. That is to say 1 large plant well trained and grown under a 1000W HID should yield a certain amount, let's say one pound of dried, cured, trimmed, bud just for and example. If you grow 10 smaller plants obviously they won't yield one pound per plant but your yield of all 10 plants will be roughly the same. If you also did a SOG of 60 plants, the yields per plant will be smaller still but the overall yield will still be roughly the same. So in the end you not only need to factor in how efficient you can make things but also what are you most comfortable with. Different styles require different levels of involvement and so some styles may not be suitable because the grower doesn't want to be or can't be that involved due to other commitments. I'd say for someone who considers themselves lazy, using a 1000W light, 10 bushes well trained in veg would be the best balance of efficiency/involvement. Of course sometimes it's all about the buds, the bigger the better especially if it's lots of big buds. For someone like that a SOG or ScrOG might be better.

 

[Billy Burroughs]

Well for this I would offer one of the most classic pieces of Old Fart advice around. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

LMAO my grandfather has told me this for years and i take it as gospel

 

[Billy Burroughs]

Well, you always wanna squeeze more outta a big power bill... but yeah, id rather not fix it, im lazy and cheap, glad i asked.

Also, dude with the fill rates on cheap RO units - WOW, had no idea they were that slow and wasteful, was close to buyin a small cheapo. I have a 75G resi, thats like a whole day 2 fill let alone the water bill. I dunno why I thought 160-180 was high, prolly cuz I used 2 live in a spot with 90ppm base.

Thanks as always, this thread is uber helpful ^.^

i thought i pointed out how wasteful the small units were but then again i typed out like 4 somewhat in depth respones to your post and everytime it said i'd been logged out due to being timed out i dunno but ya man i used to run a 100GPD RO filled 20 gallons of jugs about once a week and my water bill was 125-150 a month i bought a merlin High Output RO and my bill dropped to 10 dollars a month so if you ever buy a RO dont even waste your money or time on these small units you pay for them in more ways that just buying it the merlin cost me 500 bucks sure about double what the smaller ones are but if you look at the changes in water bills that merlins going to buy itself in 6 months or less

and like hemp kat pointed out there man if it aint broke no need going around and fixing it also for your future reference my brother called last night and i happened to remeber this and he's the hydro master not i i'm just a simple dirt farmer anyways he told me anything 200PPM + you need an RO for anything under totally not needed oregon IMO has the best water for growing weed hands down hydro or dirt never have to ph anything and hardness lol it's a hard like 30 ppm i wish we had water like that here in the desert here it's between 700-800ppm from what the hydro store guys have told me i've only used the cheap 10 dollar home depot tests they're accurate enough for me beings i grow in dirt and what not got alot more forgiveness well save your money man but if you do plan on buying an RO dont buy anything but a MERLIN everything else your going to continuously pay outrageous water bills to run

 

[Billy Burroughs]

does H2O2 have any bad effects on organic soil? Sorry if we just covered that mind is waundering~!

no it will not hurt the plants at all but the reasons ppl add hydrogen peroxide is mostly to "get rid of chloramines" and it does not work to do this other than that if it has beneficial properties i have no idea the only thing i've read about it's use was to remove chlormines in water beings an RO nor does bubbling get rid of it
and then upon further research come to find out chloramines dont hurt plant growth in any form in fact if your municipality uses chloramine then theres not even a need to bubble your water unless theres chlorine in the water as well but if they're using chloramine i can almost assure you there is 0 chlorine in that water and chlorine is the only reason to bubble your water unless of course your using an RO then theres no reason the RO removes the chlorine for you
if your using RO water i'd recommend but it is not imperative just a recomendation that you add epsom salts to your water before watering your veg plants your flowering nutes or ammended soil you shouldnt have to add the epsom salts there should be cal/mag in whatever you use anyways myself for veg i use roots organic and water period no nutes no extra N because none is needed everything that a plant needs to veg is already in straight out of the bag roots organic soil so why would you want to add more only thing besides water that gets added like i said was like a teaspoon of epsom salts a gallon just becasue there is no cal/mag substitute in roots my water is RO and in the ammended soil i flower in theres calpril in it so cal/mags taken care of i just add it as a precautionary is all

 

[stagger lee]

thanx for taking the time BB much appreciated!

 

[HempKat]

Okay first of all, for anyone who runs into the problem of having typed out a long post only to find themselves logged out when they got to post it, there are three things you can do to keep from losing your work. One is that if it's a long post before you go to post it, highlight it and copy it to your clipboard first. That way if you lose the post you'll be able to replace it by pasting what you have on the clipboard to a new post. The second way is if you know you have a long post you want to do, compose it offline in notepad or your favorite text editor. Then log on and copy then paste what you wrote offline. The third is the easiest, when you log on, check the remember me box by your login. What this does is tell the site to not log you off after seemingly long periods of inactivity.

That being said, another common use of hydrogen peroxide is to treat plants that have been over watered and are on their way to having root rot. You mix it with water at the rate gold123 mentioned and water the plants with it. The hydrogen peroxide gives up oxygen molecules which keep the roots healthy enough to allow the soil to dry out. Then you just be more careful watering after that. At least that's how I understand it to work but I've never actually had to do it myself.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

I have never heard any claims of h2o2 being able to rid water of chloromines. It is free chlorine that it can drive out and that is what has always been the claim.
There is really not enough chlorine in anyone's tap water to worry about in the first place.

 

[HempKat]

I wanted to weigh in again on the issue of H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) First and most important is that hydrogen peroxide is not a requirement or an additive used for growing. It's a tool sometimes used in growing to fix problems. Now really all I ever heard it used for was to help roots out in a waterlogged situation where they're developing root rot. This issue of it removing chloramines is news to me. That's not to say it does or doesn't do that, just that I never heard of it being used for that.

What I think is important to understand is that if you run your grow properly, you should never need to use hydrogen peroxide. The root rot issue can be totally avoided by watering plants when they actually need it rather then when you feel they should need it. As for using it to clean up your water, well I look at water like this. If you didn't bother to get it tested to find out what exactly is in there and at what levels then you really shouldn't be trying to "fix" your water. It's possible there are other things not good for your plants in there besides chloramine. If you don't want to do anything to your water other then add nutrients and such then I'd suggest you consider collecting and using rain water. If it's good enough for mother nature it's good enough for you and almost always it's better then what comes from the tap especially in grows where one is encouraging the development of a bio-herd or beneficial micro-organisms. These micro-organisms exist also in rain and using rain water will add them to your grow if you don't have them in there already and if you do then rainwater will add more for a bigger herd.

Don't just go by someone saying "most places use chloramine in their water" and then start adding things to get rid of it. The first thing to do would be to determine if your water does in fact contain it, then the next step would be to determine what if any impact it will have on your plants. Then if you find out the impact is bad, only then do you try to treat the water to remove it. You can't just run with what other people say will cause problems because usually people have the problem and then try to figure out the cause after the fact. A person for example could overwater their plants but be convinced in their mind they aren't. Then when there plants don't do well they look into it and maybe discover their water has chloramine in it and they conclude the chloramine caused the problems. In their minds overwatering was never a possibility. So lets say next grow they try to treat the chloramine from the water and as a result they end up taking longer periods of time between waterings. The longer times prevents the plants from being overwatered and so they do well. Now this person is going to believe that treating the water for chloramine fixed the problem when in reality maybe he just needed to wait longer between waterings. That's just a fictional example to illustrate why you got to be careful just running with what average joe grower tells you.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

http://www.betterthannature.com/catalog/article_info.php/articles_id/7

http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=207538

http://pico.sssup.it/files/allegati/2002_4374.pdf

http://homes-lawns-gardens.com/hydrogen-peroxide-gardens.html

http://www.hort.net/lists/sibrob/mar01/msg00007.html

 

[Billy Burroughs]

I wanted to weigh in again on the issue of H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) First and most important is that hydrogen peroxide is not a requirement or and additive used for growing. It's a tool sometimes used in growing to fix problems. Now really all I ever heard it used for was to help roots out in a waterlogged situation where they're developing root rot. This issue of it removing chloramines is news to me. That's not to say it does or doesn't do that, just that I never heard of it being used for that.

What I think is important to understand is that if you run your grow properly, you should never need to use hydrogen peroxide. The root rot issue can be totally avoided by watering plants when they actually need it rather then when you feel they should need it. As for using it to clean up your water, well I look at water like this. If you didn't bother to get it tested to find out what exactly is in there and at what levels then you really shouldn't be trying to "fix" your water. It's possible there are other things not good for your plants in there besides chloramine. If you don't want to do anything to your water other then add nutrients and such then I'd suggest you consider collecting and using rain water. If it's good enough for mother nature it's good enough for you and almost always it's better then what comes from the tap especially in grows where one is encouraging the development of a bio-herd or beneficial micro-organisms. These micro-organisms exist also in rain and using rain water will add them to your grow if you don't have them in there already and if you do then rainwater will add more for a bigger herd.

Don't just go by someone saying "most places use chloramine in their water" and then start adding things to get rid of it. The first thing to do would be to determine if your water does in fact contain it, then the next step would be to determine what if any impact it will have on your plants. Then if you find out the impact is bad, only then do you try to treat the water to remove it. You can't just run with what other people say will cause problems because usually people have the problem and then try to figure out the cause after the fact. A person for example could overwater their plants but be convinced in their mind they aren't. Then when there plants don't do well they look into it and maybe discover their water has chloramine in it and they conclude the chloramine caused the problems. In their minds overwatering was never a possibility. So lets say next grow they try to treat the chloramine from the water and as a result they end up taking longer periods of time between waterings. The longer times prevents the plants from being overwatered and so they do well. Now this person is going to believe that treating the water for chloramine fixed the problem when in reality maybe he just needed to wait longer between waterings. That's just a fictional example to illustrate why you got to be careful just running with what average joe grower tells you.

THANK YOU SIR VERY WELL PUT
hydrogen peroxide these other uses i've never heard of it being used for but then again i run my garden properlly so i have never seen anything like this not to say that problems don't arise in even the best of conditions that wouldn't be the truth at all here recentally i had a mold mushroom thing going on no biggie it's taken care of with some very simple but very effective climate adjustments the mushroom is known an the yellow houseplant mushroom supposedlly very common pose's no threat to plants other than the competition for them nutrients from what i've read about it which is fine by me in my dirt theres probablly enough nutes to grow 3 plants outta one pot
unfortunatelly the actual mushrooms you can take care of it's the mycellium that you cannot kill off even if it were dried totally out for months it'll just go dormant and when it gets water again boom its back popping out fruits so this soil i'm not going to be saving don't want to carry the contamination on so i'm going to have to add some material to my next mix of my soil to make up for that lost volume and i'm thinking that 2 bags of roots organic soil is probablly going to do the trick beings there soil has almost everything i add to my soil already i just add a couple more
but from what my brother has told me about hydro beings thats what he does and he is also a oregon green free verified garden geek he's one of the guys thats going to or possiblly could be the guy that comes out to help someone unfuck there garden in they ask oregon green free for them services
they have spent they're time and money however much it was probablly a very small amount beings he gets no compensation for driving from where he is to where ever within the state of oregon you are and back home with all this backing his play im sorry i'm going to go with his advice and his knowledge every time and so is oregon green free and any patients they send hium out to will do the same if they want there gardens to produce meds for them this is how i got all my information on water and water testing and what not is through him
just like hemp kat said here you shouldnt go on the assumption no matter who posted it always check into it you'll find that 9/10 things you coulda handled yourself and probablly for not one dime more than what you've already spent on whatever shit you got laying around there however i get my water info from the third party agency that is required to test these water municipalities and post them tesat results up every so often and it's not like it's a post then it gets done again next month these are fiarly up to the hours anyways reports they are done for water safety if you are on a well then obviouslly your not going to have this luxury so you can always hire a company to come out and test it or you can do it yourself but if your going to do it yourself dont go out and buy the 10 dollar home depot test thats not going to tell you what your wanting to know
first off you want to know everythig in your water and at about what lvls they are sitting at for instance arsenic is a very common occurring thing in well water it's justr there always will be unless you want to instal an elaborate expensive water filtration system that isnt even needed unless that arsenic lvl is way to high for human consumption
the correct testing products and what not can be purchased through any pump supplier i havent lived in a town yet that didnt have a well pump supplier in it somewhere a company that stocks parts pumps and everything to do with this kinda stuff and just because it says yamaha on the fron tof the building doesnt mean it isnt a pump supplier i am reffering to a company in glenwood oregon tiny city between eugene and springfield name is ramsey waite they sell john deere tractors yamaha motorcycles and quads and everything else that yamaha has plus they also sell pumps and anything that you cold possibly need for one including the proper testing equipment
if your on a city water supply you can get this test info from the internet then you can use one of them 10 dollar jopbies to see how hard the water is and decide weather or not you need an RO water filter or not if your in hydro i can assure you that if your PPM is over 200 with plain water your going to need an RO well water or city
the well water testing only reason it is being suggested because i feel it's your responsibility to ensure your families safety and making sure that what your taking into your body is safe is definitely a responsibility of no ones but your own would probably get rid of frivolous law suits that are clogging up our tax payer funded court system
none the less whatever info your going to go by i would make sure it was correct for instance if i had one company come out to check my well water i'd probably have 3 just to make sure i was getting an honest shake but thats just me to each there own
using hydrogen peroxide is not going to help your situation well i can only speak for the chloramine myth i've heard the rest of this stuff like i said i've never encountered
i've had problems yes for instance starting out i learned the hard way not to accept clones from just anyone got a small infestation in my veg rookm only but got that under wraps within a few weeks i use avid and flora mite alternating each one i use avid one week then flora mite the next as to keep them on there toes and guessing so they dont become immune to my sprays i want them to die neem oil doesnt kill them it just makes em run the first time or two then after that it's like o ya theres my fix that doesnt work it's more like o shit here this asshole sprayed us with this crap lets go down to the dirt and rub it off and by that time he'll be gone with that damn sprayer and we can get back to business
then another thing i had a problem with was fungus gnats again just started growing had never even heard of fungus gnats i had heard of spider mites and was under the "assumption" that these were my medicines only pest to worry about ok ok easy enough and once again only in the veg room have these incidents happened i dont put stressed out or infested plants in my flower room period i dont care if it was going to make me down to 1 plant on my count well if 1 is all i got thats going to be a guaranteed thing or as much as it can be guaranteed then it is what it is gnatrol is what i used for the fungus gnats used it twice havent seen them around since and them i cant pin down to over watering or infested bag of dirt either could have been the culprit live and learn
i was merely trying to point out exactly what you did HEMP KAT anyone can post whatever they want up here this is not church nor the bible if thats your thing not mine but to each there own this is a forum where people can get information one heads better than two right or however many read whatever thread or post you post to the board or thread look into this stuff for example heres a great one someone had this genius idea to pour a bleach flush on the plants to kill the mycelium and then end of the problem the thing that flaws his plan is that the levels of bleach that would be required to accomplish that are way over the limits that the plantt would be able to handle and if it did pull through you got a stressed out plant and stressed out plants are nothing but dancing with the devil asking to get burned