Thinking of R.O. water? You may want to think again.

friguy said:

This is my third try, so we will see how it goes. I have been using half tap water which is showing 256 PPM and a PH of 7.9 and half RO water which is showing 43 PPM and a PH of 8.1 Then I use PH- to bring it to a final PH of 6.5 and drops my PPM down to about 150. Only a few days in to this try but everything is looking good right now.

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Hey man just checking on how your half RO/half tap is going.
I'm planning to do the same thing

outofbodyspecial said:

Hey man just checking on how your half RO/half tap is going.
I'm planning to do the same thing

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sup bro i know u weren't talking to me but just to let you know i use half R/O half tap to get the best of both worlds..i use to use half Distilled and half tap but switched to R/O and tap because it's cheaper..works great

LOL, my tap water is well over 1,400 ppm. Do I even need nutes?! Just kidding. I like the Dyna-Gro regimen it seems to be a pretty complete formula (Grow, Bloom, Pro-Tekt, Mag-Pro, K-L-N & Foliage Pro).

I think my tap water must have more electrolytes than Gatorade!

Stonefree69 said:

LOL, my tap water is well over 1,400 ppm. Do I even need nutes?! Just kidding. I like the Dyna-Gro regimen it seems to be a pretty complete formula (Grow, Bloom, Pro-Tekt, Mag-Pro, K-L-N & Foliage Pro).

I think my tap water must have more electrolytes than Gatorade!

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Shit man, is that municipal water or well water? That is way over the FDA's limits to where the water may not be safe to drink. Washing your clothes in it may put in more dirt that it removes. If you don't have a water softener, your pipes and water heater are going to clog up like artery disease.
A simple home water filter, not an RO system, may help reduce that high PPM into something more realistic. Mine is 600+PPM but the town has a town well. All they can really do is add chlorine and pump it to the water tower. Try a multi stage filter only system, two-three sediment filters and see if that helps. Replacement filters are cheap, and unlike RO you don't need storage or wait for hours with a piss trickle that comes from an RO system. Get two or three of those camper inline filters from a camper shop and hook them together, put them on a garden hose, let flush for 15 min the first time of use and collect some water from them and test PPM. If it drops a lot, all you need is a filter system...or get your plant water from what you just tested.

Yeah Dirty Harry, I used to sell water purifiers in the late 80's. It's well water with high nitrates as well (excuse the pun). I'm in Arizona, believe it or not parts of Texas are even worse. Reports of frosting up greenhouse glass from the INSIDE w/scale! The best water I've heard was from Cleveland area, ppm as low as RO water at the time.

I did have a whole house filter (it had particle filters, carbon & something called kdf to help w/scale somewhat), but that's long gone. Guess I'm lucking out! Thanks MUCH for your advice!

High nitrates? You may want to think of a RO system with an adequate sized storage vessel. High nitrates are usually field fertilizer run off. That isn't good for you, and your also probably getting a good dose of insecticides with it. We have naturally high fluoride from the city well along with warning about not giving it to children as it can pit their teeth, and a round up ready multi acre field 300 ft from the city well head. The main problem is major calcium/lime/or what ever rock mineral. If the water was any harder, I swear I could walk on it. With that field on top of the city well, we have a water cooler and I fill the bottles with RO for drinking and cooking.

BeaverHuntr said:

quick question? If bleach has chlorine and chlorine is bad for your plants then why use bleach ? I'm confused.

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Just wanted to add that from my research, there is no evidence that chlorinated tap water has any affect on plants. I still let mine dissipate, but the times I needed it right away, I have not noticed I difference yet.

if there is a new study, please let me know, thanks.

Born420 said:

Just wanted to add that from my research, there is no evidence that chlorinated tap water has any affect on plants. I still let mine dissipate, but the times I needed it right away, I have not noticed I difference yet.

if there is a new study, please let me know, thanks.

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...+1 ...I've said this sooooo many times.... I guess people will stop buying into the chlorine scare when weed becomes as common as tomatoes

PetFlora said:

...
For starters, pharmaceutical residues are being flushed down the drain daily, and wind up in municipal water. Then of course their are literally hundreds of VOCs when chlorine combines with other chemicals in municipal water supply...

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Forget about growing, that is the reason I use RO to refill my water cooler for drinking water. Water is a solvent, and a lot of stuff dissolves into it. Water treatment plants only clean and sanitize the water, but there are many things they do not or can not filter out.

Yes, which is why municipalities add dissolved solids. Otherwise, the aggressive nature o pure water would prematurely eat the insides of the pipes.

Imagine how bad it is to keep D/RO water in the cheap plastic bottles they purchased in.

Also, RO water, like Distilled or DI water is energetically dead. I run my drinking water through a vortex magnet, first adding a few drops of Himalayan salt solution (concentrated HS in RO water).

For my rez, I run the RO water through a DIY structured water device + th 1/2" nute tubing passes through 2 strong magnets each time plants feed

Dirty Harry said:

Forget about growing, that is the reason I use RO to refill my water cooler for drinking water. Water is a solvent, and a lot of stuff dissolves into it. Water treatment plants only clean and sanitize the water, but there are many things they do not or can not filter out.

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I do not understand the energentically dead part or the use of magnets...but I do understand that 100% pure RO has zero salts and minerals that the human body needs. My machine is food grade safe, it will not go below 30PPM. If a person working in the heat under stress drinks only 100% 0PPM D/RO water, their body will go into a chemical imbalance and it could be fatal. I would conciser water is a PPM of 30-200 from the tap good for all. My tap without RO is 650+PPM. If it was any harder, I would walk on it.

PetFlora said:

Yes, which is why municipalities add dissolved solids. Otherwise, the aggressive nature o pure water would prematurely eat the insides of the pipes.

Imagine how bad it is to keep D/RO water in the cheap plastic bottles they purchased in.

Also, RO water, like Distilled or DI water is energetically dead. I run my drinking water through a vortex magnet, first adding a few drops of Himalayan salt solution (concentrated HS in RO water).

For my rez, I run the RO water through a DIY structured water device + th 1/2" nute tubing passes through 2 strong magnets each time plants feed

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Im such a lucky guy.. my tap is 55ppm

PetFlora said:

OP: Your thread is just another case of the blind leading the blind.

It's the shit in tap that clearly you have no idea about that demands an RO for cooking/drinking and mixing nutes.

For starters, pharmaceutical residues are being flushed down the drain daily, and wind up in municipal water. Then of course their are literally hundreds of VOCs when chlorine combines with other chemicals in municipal water supply

Additionally, what grade dissolved solids are being added by the municipalities to make tap less aggressive to the miles of pipe it travels through on it's way to your faucet? CHEAP/INFERIOR compared to what we, well I, want

Do not ask me questions. Do you own research. The info is readily available on line

Hydroponic Research offers an RO version

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I had to login to like this post. Hell yeah!

Hey PetFlora, I have a few questions for you about my HPA setup using RO+DI and a fertilizer injector tank. You seem to be the man at HPA. The systematic order of operations are produce, purify, stearilze, pressurize, fertilize, pressurize and finally apply. This is a pic of some of the mock setup. Just running lines and taking records on purification ratios right now. I ordered the fertilize injector. Its called the "Fertilizer Caddy ® here is a link to the site if you don't mind looking. http://fertilizerdispensers.com. Can you give me any pointers or advise on what you would do.

not to take away from the OP's intended direction for the thread I just felt that being as though I am using RO water and ph perfect sensi grow and connisour and they require rodi to perform as promised.

I am thinking of going RO. Using coco.
Grow was going well until after a couple of tap waterings, and a tap flush and plants have been looking like shit since. (suspecting its a ph lock out, which causes nutrient lock as well). Outta wack.

Will be doing some testing this week, once my meters arrive.

I don't give a rats ass if RO is expensive or not. I will buy it if I need it.
And frankly $100-$150 is not expensive when your in this kind of game and have gone this far already and now your going to bust a U turn on something that might ruin your crop, when in fact it might be your only option at this point and to continue having a healthy grow.
Plus I am also looking to get this unit for my beloved rottweiler..and fuck it ill drink some with her.
I feel bad giving her tap water probably killing her slowly inside.

To each there own I guess..

Just did a quick check of my tap water near los angeles. 350 ppm with a ph of 7.49. At different times of the year (summer I think) it goes much higher - 550-650 ppm with a ph of about 7.7

R.O water, the biggest scam in this industry. So let us look at water rationally. If it was true that tap water would kill plants, then every single Golf Course, Farm, Ranch, City Park, Your house plants outside....WOULD ALL BE DEAD.

So there you go, the end of this scam.

Ya but we are not talking about the worst case scenario. I'm talking about health.
Healthy plants will thrive and produce better in both quantity and quality ending with great production.
Same for a dog.. You feed a dog grade A food, dog will have a higher chance of having healthier longer lifespan versus bad degraded food supply. In general health is important if you want to push it to the limit and have a great appreciated outcome and you will be happy in the end.

I am not slamming tap water.. I'm using tap water.
I would like to try RO and I think I should see some changes if you have your nutes dialed in first.
RO is a plus because you know whats going in nute wise and balance, which sometimes leads to no flushing until harvest and not running into problems and slowing the process.
But when using tap water don't over feed since tap water will sometimes contain some food, depending on the readings/testings of course locations, times of the year all plays a role..

By filtering out excess salt build-up, growers can maintain the quality of their water, and encourage nutrient-absorption, to provide optimum grow results. Basically, ensuring water quality takes a bit of effort but is essential to a successful grow - therefore well worth the effort!