When diluting hard water with RO is extra magnesium via epsom salts typically required?

[ice minus]

It is living soil. That just means it's alive with microbes and stuff. It doesn't necessarily have to have worms and other critters to be living. Those microbes will adjust the pH for the most part so you don't really need to worry about it. I never adjust water pH and I've been using the same soil for almost 6 years now.

Amazing!! This is what I want to do as well, if I can just get it figured out! The soil is very expensive to start, but they sell all the amendments both individually or in premade mixes to hopefully keep it going forever!

What do you do with the soil in order to reuse it after you chop your plant down?! I'd love to know more about if there's anything I need to do

Kitchener/Waterloo area is nice and I got family there.
I'm about 4 hours North.

Cheers

Like Sudbury or something that sounds like! Awesome, small world man, cheers !!

You can get a water analysis done at a place that sells or rents purification equipment and tell you exactly whats in your water,my municipal office will send mine away. I just run a double filter system which takes it down to 160,and the treated water ay my neighbours is 140.If you are saying your feed is 115ppm plus the solids in your source,you can buy GH 3 part for hard water and run it. Your RO should take it down to more than that.

I wish! I'm not sure if anywhere near me can test for stuff like that. I really wish I could find such a place!

The water tests out of my tap 300-330ppm .. then I cut it with RO down to 115ppm or whatever is desired.. then I hit it with a pinch of absorbic acid powder from my local health shop to reduce a big part of the chlorines ( I use this calculator from reddit aquaponics ) and was debating now introducing added Epsom salts

I can only speak of my experience. Your tap water may be very different than mine as far as mineral ratios are concerned.

I also have very hard water (425+ppm). I dilute my tap water 50-50 with distilled (from dehumidifier). And I find that I still need to supplement Mg.

My city does not give mineral levels. I can only assume there is not much Mg in my tap to begin with and the hardness comes mainly from Calcium

Ah, so I'm doing a similar thing then with a 330 start but RO to reduce. I am wondering if there's any harm in adding Epsom salt?

The problem with not knowing how much calcium and mag are in the tap water is the cal-mag ratio could be off. If it were me I would only use RO fortified with a little cal mag. That way you would have the right starting ratio set in the beginning. Mixing tap water with RO can work if the ratio is in the right portion, but not knowing the ratio could come back and bite you on the ass later in flowering. I would only use RO with cal mag with a starting ppm of 120 for any indoor grow.

The other way is to mix enough tap with RO with a starting ppm of 120 and see what it does. This will be harder to get dialed in but it can work if you watch the pH closely. The best way to watch this formula is by watching the pH of the intake water, and lastly the runoff. If the pH drops too low, then increase the tap water with RO water. If the pH rises then reduce the tap to lower the pH.

I use r/o water exclusively. Cannabis is a dynamic accumulator, and even though most folks can't tell without lab tests, random 'stuff' in your tap water definitely impacts your end quality.

Remove it all and put back only the elements you need (not with tap water). Calcium acetate and magnesium sulfate are AWESOME and suuuper inexpensive, so you can definitely skip the 'bottled' products for your calcium and magnesium needs.

I know, in a perfect world I'd just use all RO but I am for some stupid reason obsessed with trying to use what's naturally present in the tap water.. however your comment on random stuff being bad I guess is now having me rethink it

When's the last time you calibrated your meter?

Every damn time I use it, it's a Hanna. And it absolutely is terrible. Takes forever to do anything, wildly inconsistent, quite literally untrustworthy. I can only assume my diode or whatever it is must be buggered

to use the calcium (and eventually magnesium) naturally present in your tap water you need to use acid
this will free the calcium ion from its bicarbonate and make it available to your plants

your ph down, it is formulated from phosphoric acid right ?
this will work but nitric acid (38%) is superior, as it will not form any precipitate

anyhow if you can't find any water analysis from your area (which would surprise me) it will be difficult to know how much calcium/magnesium is present in your tap

actually it can be very low because other elements naturally abondant in some regions (sulfates, chlorides, sodium...)also influence conductivity of the tap water

if they lack calcium, you will see rust spots on fan leaves
if they lack magnesium, you will get interveinal chlorosis on middle leaves

also

ph tester drops are reliable and economical
aim for a piss yellow(ph 6) to green/yellow (ph 6.5)

Fascinating stuff and thank you! I unfortunately don't have the answers to most of it. I've never heard of those chemicals before! I use something called TNB DOWN from my local grow store , it's a white granule or some sort. And it might not be so good, I've seen mixed reviews on it saying it drifts and other oddities - but I don't know what else to use that won't kill microbes

 

[ice minus]

Lastly, I don't see rust spots on the leaves but sometimes the very tip of the leaf will slightly brown or rust?

The second part of the interveinal thing sounds more appropriate for sure

My biggest thing is I keep feeding water too long I guess, in both veg or flower, then all of a sudden the plant starts rapidly fading out, getting light leaves and stuff, I'm really trying but having trouble

The good thing is, just by nature, it makes me want to troubleshoot something until I have an a-ha moment! Much like fixing a computer

So I will not give up

I'm here to get help from you all

 

[ice minus]

I have news!

I escalated my inquiries all the way up the chain to the main Water Technician for the entire region, and he has provided me with the data set

Please let me know if you can make heads or tails of this
EDIT - created new thread so it doesn't derail this topic: https://www.icmag.com/threads/here-are-the-water-results-from-region-of-waterloo-tap-water.18130976/

 

[goingrey]

Every damn time I use it, it's a Hanna. And it absolutely is terrible. Takes forever to do anything, wildly inconsistent, quite literally untrustworthy. I can only assume my diode or whatever it is must be buggered

Time to buy another one.

The Milwaukee I have goes for like $25. Seems ok so far. Been putting a drop of the storage solution in the cap every time I use it, maybe it helps.

 

[PadawanWarrior]

Amazing!! This is what I want to do as well, if I can just get it figured out! The soil is very expensive to start, but they sell all the amendments both individually or in premade mixes to hopefully keep it going forever!

What do you do with the soil in order to reuse it after you chop your plant down?! I'd love to know more about if there's anything I need to do


Like Sudbury or something that sounds like! Awesome, small world man, cheers !!


I wish! I'm not sure if anywhere near me can test for stuff like that. I really wish I could find such a place!

The water tests out of my tap 300-330ppm .. then I cut it with RO down to 115ppm or whatever is desired.. then I hit it with a pinch of absorbic acid powder from my local health shop to reduce a big part of the chlorines ( I use this calculator from reddit aquaponics ) and was debating now introducing added Epsom salts


Ah, so I'm doing a similar thing then with a 330 start but RO to reduce. I am wondering if there's any harm in adding Epsom salt?




I know, in a perfect world I'd just use all RO but I am for some stupid reason obsessed with trying to use what's naturally present in the tap water.. however your comment on random stuff being bad I guess is now having me rethink it

Every damn time I use it, it's a Hanna. And it absolutely is terrible. Takes forever to do anything, wildly inconsistent, quite literally untrustworthy. I can only assume my diode or whatever it is must be buggered


Fascinating stuff and thank you! I unfortunately don't have the answers to most of it. I've never heard of those chemicals before! I use something called TNB DOWN from my local grow store , it's a white granule or some sort. And it might not be so good, I've seen mixed reviews on it saying it drifts and other oddities - but I don't know what else to use that won't kill microbes

I've been doing the no-till thing for the most part. So I just chop the old plant and plant a new one next to it or sometimes I'll pull out the stalk too and plant the new one in the same hole. After the first few runs in straight FFOF I added some pumice and rice hulls but haven't really done anything since except top dress different stuff.

For awhile I rotated the pots so it would have a few months to breakdown the old root ball but haven't been doing that lately. I also started using cover crops last year and that really seems to help the soil. I've never tested my soil so I just kind of guess what the soil needs based on trial and error and plant symptoms.

 

[PetFlora]

remember, RO strips away all elements in the water...

Not true! Even the very best ROs will only remove ~ 90% of the HARDNESS minerals. See below

 

[PetFlora]

remember, RO strips away all elements in the water...

Not true! Even the very best ROs will only remove ~ 90% of the HARDNESS minerals. See below

 

[PetFlora]

Hi all, greetings from rural Waterloo region, ON!

I live in a part of the province that feeds a lot of the rest of our province. There are farms and fields in every direction that as far as I know do just fine with the regions tap water.

But this being said -- it's extremely hard out here. Around 330 PPM from the tap currently.

I saw in another thread that target PPM for cannabis is somewhere around 100, so I use 10L RO to 5L Tap and this puts me right around 100-115PPM.

My question is this: without knowing the exact concentrations of calcium and magnesium in our tap water (I've checked the regions website, sadly they only test for heavy metals and lead), and knowing that we have extremely hard 330PPM tapwater diluted down to around 115PPM with RO, would supplementing additional magnesium be required with epsom salts?

I just picked some up after seeing conflicting forum posts online and am still unsure on this

Big thanks again for any advice, cheers!!

RO isn't 100% mineral free. You need to use DI (de-ionization) for that, BUT, if you are getting high performance RO water it might be ~ 90% demineralized

 

[Boo]

The last thing I want to do is get into a conversation about RO. The last RO system I had gave me 0 ppm with my truncheon so in my eyes that’s a win…even if there’s only 10% of the minerals left in the water that gives you a good start on clean water for your plants…

 

[Dime]

A proper system will have membrane that filters to .0001micron size solids. If you read 10-50 ppm on a good calibrated meter then it's working as intended.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

I change my r/o membrane when backflushing does not result in 'less than' <15ppm.

I'm pretty sure the majority of <25ppm r/o using folks can easily trade reliable information about their gardens. "Tap" water, even if only as a mixed in supplement to your r/o water, will exclude you from this sharing club. At least as far as working with nutrients and pH goes when growing...

 

[ice minus]

The results of my regions water are supposedly quite good, I created a different thread and linked to it above, but it is supposedly rich in calcium and a medium level of Magnesium amongst other things.. So I am back to really wanting to make use of straight tap and kick the RO out of the equation altogether. I will most likely deeply regret this, but I'm a troubleshooter by nature and even apply this same idea to a computer that isn't working.. I want to figure out what's going on, and MAKE it work. If I have grow problems or don't get a harvest in so on it really wouldn't do anything except make me want to immediately try again and try something new until it clicks. I actually dab hash 90% of the time and this is strictly a hobby for me as it would take me forever to smoke even 1 plant.

I need to find a nitric acid based pH Down in Waterloo Region and it's proving to be an impossible challenge. I can only find 2 brands in Canada that even use this acid: Technaflora and Dyna Gro - and the shops that carry them are half way across the country.. Specifically nitric acid, because supposedly it will provide trace nitrogen to the veg plants (I'd switch to phos acid for bloom) and also it's the only acid that won't cause precipitation of the hard minerals in the water and clog my Blumats

 

[maryjaneismyfre]

Yeah my supply water which gets used in the greenhouses is the hundreds of ppms, and after RO for the indoors about 5ppm so I don't know where you pull your 10% from? Kinda like a we use only 10% of our brain kinda figure.... My bud looks better in the greenhouses, because light in summer is stupid good, winter its a waste of power so only indoors. Anyway we are putting RO in for the greenhouses supply now, gonna be a huge plant but at scale worth the money. As douglas says you can always add in what you want, removing is harder. If your feed is decent then you should not need to add anything else to RO. Else it would be in the feed to begin with if you needed it? No?

But for your own personal grows, if your tap water is fine, and your feed nice and balanced and got enough of all in, you will most likely be fine and grow bud that you'd hardly be able to tell any difference, and if feed lacking, maybe better bud in the tap water...much over muchness...try and compare and see..

 

[maryjaneismyfre]

I change my r/o membrane when backflushing does not result in 'less than' <15ppm.

I'm pretty sure the majority of <25ppm r/o using folks can easily trade reliable information about their gardens. "Tap" water, even if only as a mixed in supplement to your r/o water, will exclude you from this sharing club. At least as far as working with nutrients and pH goes when growing...

Yeah also aside from back flushing I mean you can run cleaning cycles on membranes, acid and then base etc...RO membranes on a proper system last a long time and will consistantly remove most crap out the water. But if clean tap water and for your own bud, not some commercial facility, is the RO worth the extra money, probably not..
If you have water issues, it might well be...