Is Distilled Water Bad to Use for Watering Your Plants?

Hello

I am using distilled water right out of the gallon to water my plants. I have been reading mixed viewpoints on this with some saying that its bad and some saying that it doesn't really matter. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Or recommendation for other types of water to use? Any help is much appreciated

- GB

Did you know....if distilled water was all you had access to you would slowly die ? Distilled water is void of any and all mineral base. Now, plants aren't people, but I wouldnt use it
JMO of course.....

No, nothing wrong with distilled water as long as you ad back some micro-nutrients. Even that's not necessary if you use a complete nutrient line like house and garden or if you use a good soil mix containing goodies like kelp meal.

And also I suppose you could die if you relied on distilled water for all your nutrient intake but most of us eat food so..........

Gaberlunzie said:

No, nothing wrong with distilled water as long as you ad back some micro-nutrients. Even that's not necessary if you use a complete nutrient line like house and garden or if you use a good soil mix containing goodies like kelp meal.

And also I suppose you could die if you relied on distilled water for all your nutrient intake but most of us eat food so..........

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If I don't add nutrients to the distilled water should I not use it? Im just starting a seedling now and I haven't been adding anything to the water. Im growing in FOx Farm Ocean Forest and people have said that it has more than enough nutrients in it for at least a month. True or false?

If you're starting a seedling, yes, you'll be fine for at least 2-3 weeks using distilled - a month might be pushing it. It also depends on the growth rate due to lighting and what size pot you're starting in - you could go a bit longer in a larger pot.

Distilled water is all good.. You could, if you wanted, add a bit 1/4 tap water to the water. THis will give you a bit of cal/mag and stabilize the PH of the water once you start adding nutes.. You see Your nutes will drop the PH of your water significantly. By adding some PPM back to the mix it become more stable and you don't have to mess with PH as much..

Your tap water is probably 300-500 PPM. Distilled water is 0 PPM. Make a 100 PPM solution by adding some tap water.

Your seedling will not need nutes for 2-3 weeks. After that either flower it or begin adding veg in the case that you will be vegging for more than a few weeks. I veg for a really long time so I need veg nutes.

Good Luck

Ganja Boy 420 said:

I have been reading mixed viewpoints on this with some saying that its bad and some saying that it doesn't really matter.

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The way I understand it, it's just a matter of how impurities are removed from the water. Distillation converts water to steam, then condenses that to water (leaving the impurities behind). RO filters the water through a membrane. They both end up with 0-20 ppm. Distilled might be more reliable, producing 0-10 more consistently. RO filters can degrade, letting more impurities through. (Also totally fail, allowing >100 through).

If your tap water's ppms are < 250 there's no reason to use purified water. If it's higher, you can mix tap with purified to get something in the range of 120-200p. Some people don't like the chlorine in tap water. But, municipal water supplies are a closed, relatively clean system. Not like a swimming pool. There's very little disinfectant added. It's quickly exhausted by any bacterial load. Add a pinch of sugar or just spit in your water. A few hours later it should be exhausted.

(edit: sunny said it while i was typing.).

I flick a buggar in my tap water..No more chlorine

I saw all of this on a good grow video. The videographer was touring a massive grow space in Colorado. They were also adding tap water to their RO water. Maybe 10% to %20..

Get this! My tap is 480 ppm. Way high..

sunny747 said:

Distilled water is all good.. You could, if you wanted, add a bit 1/4 tap water to the water. THis will give you a bit of cal/mag and stabilize the PH of the water once you start adding nutes.. You see Your nutes will drop the PH of your water significantly. By adding some PPM back to the mix it become more stable and you don't have to mess with PH as much..

Your tap water is probably 300-500 PPM. Distilled water is 0 PPM. Make a 100 PPM solution by adding some tap water.

Your seedling will not need nutes for 2-3 weeks. After that either flower it or begin adding veg in the case that you will be vegging for more than a few weeks. I veg for a really long time so I need veg nutes.

Good Luck

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Thanks for the great info guy its definitely appreciated. Is there any veg nutes that you recommend? Are the Fox Farm line of nutes good? If so would you use "grow big" for veg and then "Big Bloom" for flower?

Distilled water carries a negative charge which makes it a bad choice for growing.

Alexander Supertramp said:

Distilled water carries a negative charge which makes it a bad choice for growing.

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Without salts, how does it have ions? I thought the whole point about not ph testing pure water (distilled or RO) is that it's been deionized, that there's nothing there to measure.

Ganja Boy 420 said:

Hello

I am using distilled water right out of the gallon to water my plants. I have been reading mixed viewpoints on this with some saying that its bad and some saying that it doesn't really matter. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Or recommendation for other types of water to use? Any help is much appreciated

- GB

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I use R/O water and it works great, it is similar to distilled water as it has nearly 0 impurities.

Ganja Boy 420 said:

Hello

I am using distilled water right out of the gallon to water my plants. I have been reading mixed viewpoints on this with some saying that its bad and some saying that it doesn't really matter. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Or recommendation for other types of water to use? Any help is much appreciated

- GB

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Depends on the nutrient line really. Canna u can't. H and G recommend.

It's really the fact that tap water has some trace in it.... Just be sure to let the chlorine get out by letting sit for 24 hours per gallon. That'll rid any chlorine and ull get. The trace.

It's really the line yu choose, what are you using?

Yodaweed said:

I use R/O water and it works great, it is similar to distilled water as it has nearly 0 impurities.

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R/o = Distilled, no?

Oh yea need to add cal and mag prolly with Distilled H2o

Sagethisplanet said:

R/o = Distilled, no?

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Nah different process, distilled is heated to boiling to and recollected and R/O goes through a filtration system that uses reverse osmosis(water forced through a membrane after carbon and sediment filtering)

Plant amp has great. Calcium

az2000 said:

Without salts, how does it have ions? I thought the whole point about not ph testing pure water (distilled or RO) is that it's been deionized, that there's nothing there to measure.

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not all the time. Really just depends on brand. Used for h and g before and was amazing. That was bio 1 with cal add and the rest of the line..... Got away from the liquids mostly and prefer to create the medium. Better for the plant.

There's nothing wrong with using distilled water. It's just water!

There's nothing wrong with drinking distilled either. You should be able to get enough calcium through food, and the sodium from salt makes it all moot point very fast. It's all going to a sack of hydrochloric acid anyway.