I FEEL IM RIGHT ABOUT DISTILLED WATER BUT I MAY BE WRONG PLEASE HELP!?!?

Rickypsimer

Rickypsimer

Well-Known Member
Hey guys thanks for reading my thread I'm in Fox Farm ocean forest soil 3 gallon fabric pots now when I was growing Coco coir hydroponically distilled water was a bad idea because it contained no Trace elements like calcium and magnesium what you need to boost with Coco coir but now that since I'm growing organically in soil doesn't that whole concept of calcium and magnesium needing to be present in your water kind of go out the window can I use distilled water that's perfectly pH that 6.5 straight out the bottle and if I add a little bit of nutrients there's the calcium and magnesium I need and when I put it in the soil isn't it the microbes/ microhyzoll that are delivering the nutrients and not the salts and water like in Hydroponics my tap water here smells like a damn pool with the amount of chlorine so I assume that there is chloramine also that I won't be able to break down out of it.
 
Jman108227

Jman108227

Well-Known Member
I've had people on here tell me not to use distilled water so I just use bottled water ro water for my plant. My buddy grows in soil and all he uses is distilled water and his plants are always fine. I'm not an expert but I'm sure you'll be good if you're adding what it needs to the soil nutrient wise. My next plant I'm going to go all distilled with dry amendments after I use up whatever nutes are in the soil. People will tell me to do otherwise for sure. But I need to learn so I'm going to try and grow this plant every way that I can. If it works that's great, if not I'll take that method off the list.
 
Boatguy

Boatguy

Well-Known Member
Rickypsimer said:
Hey guys thanks for reading my thread I'm in Fox Farm ocean forest soil 3 gallon fabric pots now when I was growing Coco coir hydroponically distilled water was a bad idea because it contained no Trace elements like calcium and magnesium what you need to boost with Coco coir but now that since I'm growing organically in soil doesn't that whole concept of calcium and magnesium needing to be present in your water kind of go out the window can I use distilled water that's perfectly pH that 6.5 straight out the bottle and if I add a little bit of nutrients there's the calcium and magnesium I need and when I put it in the soil isn't it the microbes/ microhyzoll that are delivering the nutrients and not the salts and water like in Hydroponics my tap water here smells like a damn pool with the amount of chlorine so I assume that there is chloramine also that I won't be able to break down out of it.
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Fwiw i use tap for my indoor and outdoor gardens. No noticeable difference using RO water.
I think if there were enough chlorine to kill things, it would be unsafe to drink.
 
Thundercat

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
RO water has nothing in it either, people swear by that.

If you are using water without anything in it, it allows you to control what’s in it. In hydroponics RO water is preferred because you can control it. I don’t see why distilled would be any different.

Also whether you are growing in hydro or in soil the plants absorb ions. In soil the microbes break down organic material and “excrete” nutrient ions the roots can absorb. With pure nutrients the plant is able to directly absorb the exact same ions without the need to have the soil web manipulation.
 
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Rickypsimer

Rickypsimer

Well-Known Member
Boatguy said:
Fwiw i use tap for my indoor and outdoor gardens. No noticeable difference using RO water.
I think if there were enough chlorine to kill things, it would be unsafe to drink.
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Also when the water sets I can see an orange tinge in my bath tub so I'm thinking rusty pipes also
 
Thundercat

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
Have you actually tested your tap water? I e lived places where the tap water was infact bad water very high ppm. I’ve also lived places the last 10 years where that was not the case, and the tap water worked great for growing. All I’ve used to grow for years now is tap water.

Just because you smell some chlorine doesn’t mean there is actually tons of it. Chlorine is an essential nutrient for plants to grow, and most tap water doesn’t actually have that much in it. Same thing for iron :).

But you could also just have shitty water lol. Many years ago I spent a whole grow taking 20ish empty jugs every week and filling them at a local clean water dispenser.
 
ounevinsmoke

ounevinsmoke

Well-Known Member
Thundercat said:
Have you actually tested your tap water? I e lived places where the tap water was infact bad water very high ppm. I’ve also lived places the last 10 years where that was not the case, and the tap water worked great for growing. All I’ve used to grow for years now is tap water.

Just because you smell some chlorine doesn’t mean there is actually tons of it. Chlorine is an essential nutrient for plants to grow, and most tap water doesn’t actually have that much in it. Same thing for iron :).

But you could also just have shitty water lol. Many years ago I spent a whole grow taking 20ish empty jugs every week and filling them at a local clean water dispenser.
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I have recently been distilling my tap water, and after two weeks of cleaning the white sludge in the pot I will never water a plant with it or drink it again. That's from making two gallons a day for two weeks. The pot needed cleaned every week but could have used a clean after one day. I can see a vast ton of issues being created by using tap water(especially if using organic soil), from lockout issues to high chlorine etc. After seeing what is left in my water after distillation I cant imagine how a biological ecosytem can fully thrive with those amounts of contaminets/chemicals.
 
Nizza

Nizza

Well-Known Member
If you open your toilet tank and it looks like there’s thick rust on it you prolly have hard water.

I got my RO unit for around 300$ and I love it.
Yes add cal mag to coco it is cheap. And yes you can use distilled so long as you add some nutrient.
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
The plants don’t care; all they need is 2 parts hydrogen to 1 part oxygen. Municipal tap water systems regularly add in fluoride and chloramine which can harm microlife and fungi in the soil if given over long term. So with that in mind there are 2 schools of thought for organic growers: you can try to avoid using water sources without additives or use the water from your tap knowing that you will need regularly add compost and/or teas to keep the mix highly active or simply give the plants soluble nutrients as needed.
I started out using tap water but always had yellow plants 6 weeks in and then resorted to using nutes. Bought an RO filter a long time ago which solved this but found it to be wasteful; made 1 gallon of RO for every 3 gals of wastewater. The unit exploded one winter due to the cold because it was hooked up to a garden hose in an uninsulated area of the house. So that was that.
Then I read you can give your plants water reclaimed from a dehumidifier or a/c. I augment that with rain and collected spring water. The dehuey water is stark; only 30 ppms. I used to add gen organic cal/mag+ but I’ve got so much composted eggshell in the mix right now there is no longer a need for soluble calmag. Took years of amending & recycling the soil to get to this point.
 
Rickypsimer

Rickypsimer

Well-Known Member
Richard Drysift said:
The plants don’t care; all they need is 2 parts hydrogen to 1 part oxygen. Municipal tap water systems regularly add in fluoride and chloramine which can harm microlife and fungi in the soil if given over long term. So with that in mind there are 2 schools of thought for organic growers: you can try to avoid using water sources without additives or use the water from your tap knowing that you will need regularly add compost and/or teas to keep the mix highly active or simply give the plants soluble nutrients as needed.
I started out using tap water but always had yellow plants 6 weeks in and then resorted to using nutes. Bought an RO filter a long time ago which solved this but found it to be wasteful; made 1 gallon of RO for every 3 gals of wastewater. The unit exploded one winter due to the cold because it was hooked up to a garden hose in an uninsulated area of the house. So that was that.
Then I read you can give your plants water reclaimed from a dehumidifier or a/c. I augment that with rain and collected spring water. The dehuey water is stark; only 30 ppms. I used to add gen organic cal/mag+ but I’ve got so much composted eggshell in the mix right now there is no longer a need for soluble calmag. Took years of amending & recycling the soil to get to this point.
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I feel I'm getting the yellowing your talking about in this picture you can't tell but there a huge difference in the contrast of LEAFE color
 

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Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Bignutes said:
The plants don't care, but then you go on to say they do care.......a bit contradictory, they do care.
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They have no thoughts or feelings; plants simply absorb what is there but if there isn’t anything to absorb because microbial activity is at a standstill the plants exhibit signs of what looks like a ph lockout or a deficiency when in fact it is just inactive soil.

Rickypsimer said:
I feel I'm getting the yellowing your talking about in this picture you can't tell but there a huge difference in the contrast of LEAFE color
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If they have been in the same container for awhile you can try to top dress with some ewc or transplant to a larger pot with some fresh mix with compost added. I suggest adding in a slow release fertilizer as well if you can; chicken or cow manure is good. Granular mycorrhizae helps a lot to prevent absorbtion issues; add some in the hole at each transplant.
The only other thing you can do right now is add nutrients. Liquid fish can help but usually if you are seeing them yellow off hard it’s a bit too late to fix it without something stronger. Problem is once you go back to using nutrients you kind of gotta let it ride that way. Very hard to reverse course back to water only once you do.
 
giampaolo

giampaolo

Member
All I can say is related to my own personal experience. Whether growing in Coco or DWC you are completely in control of what's in the water and solution. I used distilled, and tap water, but I added CalMag to make sure there were no deficiencies. As far as using Fox Farm...yes, it has the trace elements, but you needn't be afraid of chlorinated water. It's really a bullshit myth because most water supply systems don't contain enough Chlorine to damage plants...so the 24 hour thing is really bullshit in most cases too. However, I believe what you say. Maybe you have overly chlorinated water. You can boil the Chlorine out of tap water in 20 mins. As far as Chloramines...those are hard to remove, but can be done with vitamin C. Buying all that fancy water is often unnecessary and costly. It may seem cheap for $1 a gallon, but that adds up. If you live in a less polluted area...use rainwater.
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Even if you use only water sourced from a mountain spring your mix can become inactive over time if you don’t add back compost and minerals. The water source you decide to use is not as important as keeping the soil active. If you keep adding back a source of compost regularly virtually any source of water can sustain plants. It’s just that a clean water source allows microbial activity to flourish much longer. The idea is to put what is needed into the soil before there are plants growing in it and then you just water the plants for the entire grow.
 
swedsteven

swedsteven

Well-Known Member
Richard Drysift said:
Even if you use only water sourced from a mountain spring your mix can become inactive over time if you don’t add back compost and minerals. The water source you decide to use is not as important as keeping the soil active. If you keep adding back a source of compost regularly virtually any source of water can sustain plants. It’s just that a clean water source allows microbial activity to flourish much longer. The idea is to put what is needed into the soil before there are plants growing in it and then you just water the plants for the entire grow.
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Tell me how grower get perfect result with coco and gaia green amendement .no compost.

No compost the microbe and fungi are every where and strong .

I use tap water right away no waiting with no yellowing ! I just got to topdress every 3week to a month and test my soil npk ph test .
 
Rickypsimer

Rickypsimer

Well-Known Member
I'm confident this is just some explosive growth and it's a bit lighter than the rest and will I just did a feeding after topping and it's day 23 already did my second topping so I'm hoping it's just fast growth
 
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