Water quality and calmag

G

George2324

Well-Known Member
my tap water comes out as around 180ppm on a x500 scale.

On the water companies website all they give me for quality tests are that they claim:
The water is moderately soft with:
40mg/l as calcium
100mg/l as calcium carbonate.

They don’t state how much magnesium.
However if my tap water is 180 and they say 140ppm is calcium should I be using a calmag supplement with this kind of water?

I have gotten some calmag deficiencies late in flower before but thought nothing of it. But I’m starting to think to give my plants what they actually need I should be running calmag all the way through?

Anyone else have water like this?
 
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Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
George2324 said:
my tap water comes out as around 180ppm on a x500 scale.

On the water companies website all they give me for quality tests are that they claim:
The water is moderately soft with:
40mg/l as calcium
100mg/l as calcium carbonate.

They don’t state how much magnesium.
However if my tap water is 180 and they say 140ppm is calcium should I be using a calmag supplement with this kind of water?

I have gotten some calmag deficiencies late in flower before but thought nothing of it. But I’m starting to think to give my plants what they actually need I should be running calmag all the way through?

Anyone else have water like this?
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Are you running soil, coco, or a DWC type system?
 
G

George2324

Well-Known Member
Airwalker16 said:
You're best bet will be to drop the $100 on an under sink Reverse Osmosis system then. That way there's no guesswork, you can start at 0PPMs and add the calmag.
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I have 3 systems going one is 470l one is 325l and one is 250l it would take me days to refill the reservoirs. Unfortunately RO isn’t an option in this case. I had considered it even having a large rainwater tank outside collecting the RO water during the week but I’d need a tank over 2000l just don’t have the room for that
 
G

George2324

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
what nutes?

any additives? what's all in your res?
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This is my start ph. I’m gonna be using ionic line going forward for simplicity.

Only thing in my res will be ionic grow/bloom and ionic boost, and liquid silicon then the calmag if I determine I need to run it all the time
 
5BY5LEC

5BY5LEC

Well-Known Member
George2324 said:
my tap water comes out as around 180ppm on a x500 scale.

On the water companies website all they give me for quality tests are that they claim:
The water is moderately soft with:
40mg/l as calcium
100mg/l as calcium carbonate.

They don’t state how much magnesium.
However if my tap water is 180 and they say 140ppm is calcium should I be using a calmag supplement with this kind of water?

I have gotten some calmag deficiencies late in flower before but thought nothing of it. But I’m starting to think to give my plants what they actually need I should be running calmag all the way through?

Anyone else have water like this?
Click to expand...
I would just forget that you even have 180ppm to begin with. Throw 150ppm calmag in there for around 230ppm and start your nutes there.
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
Or maybe at least just use a simple water filter of some sort on the outlet line for your source water. It may be able to catch some of the nastier elements and get you to at least 100ppm.
 
G

George2324

Well-Known Member
Airwalker16 said:
Or maybe at least just use a simple water filter of some sort on the outlet line for your source water. It may be able to catch some of the nastier elements and get you to at least 100ppm.
Click to expand...
What sort of filter? I’ve never heard of filters that just go on the end of a tap
 
Bugeye

Bugeye

Well-Known Member
The problem with tap water cal/mag is that it can come in a large molecule form that is not easily taken up by your plants.
 
G

George2324

Well-Known Member
Bugeye said:
The problem with tap water cal/mag is that it can come in a large molecule form that is not easily taken up by your plants.
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I’m considering using ionic nutes in the future. I’ve contacted the manufacturer and they claim you don’t need calmag with ionic as it contains enough calmag so I’ll give this a go on my next few runs and see if I get the calmag deficiency at all later on in growth
 
rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
George2324 said:
Why would phopshoric acid or any other type of ph down cause problems with soft water?
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i was gonna ask the same. @Atomizer is a good source of knowledge 'round these parts so I would assume he's right. I would think something to do with the interaction b/t the acids and the calcium carbonate but not sure.
 
A

Atomizer

Well-Known Member
You didnt read it correctly, i said there`s no problem ;)
Nitric acid will react positively with the tapwater, converting the carbonate into nitrate. Phosphoric acid isnt as useful because the reaction with carbonate forms insoluble phosphate.
 
rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
Atomizer said:
You didnt read it correctly, i said there`s no problem ;)
Nitric acid will react positively with the tapwater, converting the carbonate into nitrate. Phosphoric acid isnt as useful because the reaction with carbonate forms insoluble phosphate.
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to save me some time trying to look them all up, what brands use nitric as their down? i'm almost out of my GH pH down and would be up for trying another.
 
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