Water Source

Rainbow Warrior

Rainbow Warrior

Well-Known Member
To all the water gurus out there,

I get my unmetered water (used for watering my garden) directly from a borehole; the water always smells eggy, which makes me think that there’s a fair amount of sulphur in it.

I never had any problems with ordinary garden plants, but is Sulphur damaging to Mary J‘s? If so, how do I get it out of my water supply? What are the signs / effects of too much sulphur on your plants?
Looking for a cheap, non-chemical way out...

RW
:peace:
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Our deep well in the Fraser Valley in BC had that eggy smell too and I thought it was hydrogen sulfide but it was high manganese and almost zero H2S. Was within safe drinking limits tho and with a pass through a Brita filter tasted fine. Left an orangey-red stain on fixtures tho.
 
Rainbow Warrior

Rainbow Warrior

Well-Known Member
OldMedUser said:
Our deep well in the Fraser Valley in BC had that eggy smell too and I thought it was hydrogen sulfide but it was high manganese and almost zero H2S. Was within safe drinking limits tho and with a pass through a Brita filter tasted fine. Left an orangey-red stain on fixtures tho.
Click to expand...
My well water is orangey too, will give the Filter a go...

Did ur plants grow well?

RW
:peace:
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Rainbow Warrior said:
My well water is orangey too, will give the Filter a go...

Did ur plants grow well?

RW
:peace:
Click to expand...
I wasn't growing back then but have been growing steady since I moved up here to northern Alberta in 2001. Town water is horrible so used RO water for drinking and growing ever since. We bought a new Brita filter for the town water and it still tasted like shit so it's been RO since.

We bought this acreage in 2003 and the water for the house comes out of a dugout on the property and isn't fit to drink. We only filter it down to 5 micron and there is no sterilization. Around 400ppm and pH8 so wouldn't want to feed that to my plants either. I want to put in my own RO unit but need better pre-filtration and a UV sterilizer if we are going to drink it tho not if just for the plants. Standard RO units come with just a 5 micron pre-filter and we already do that so would want a 1 micron then a 0.5 micron carbon filter to get rid of the taste before it hits the RO membrane. Then a de-ionizing filter to get it really clean before it goes through the UV unit.

I've done quite a bit of research and found out that smaller gal/day units last longer per gal and cost a lot less. Best to get a good food grade container and rig it up with a float valve so your RO can run slowly and steadily rather than pump out lots of water for a short period of time then shut down.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
hotrodharley said:
RO or rainwater any day. Check the pH on both.
Click to expand...
No need to check pH with RO or distilled water as they are both neutral. There may be a few ions that can make your pH pen read off of 7 one way or another but it's really meaningless. Can be used as is for any watering and won't affect the pH of soils or hydro grows. Like with any water you should mix up your nutrients then check your pH and adjust if needed. Except for known hard water. That should be pH'ed down closer to 7 before mixing nutes as too high, or low, a pH could cause some minerals in the nutes to drop out of sol'n or be altered in some chemical reaction.

Rain water can be mildly acidic and back in the acid rain days some rain water in northern Ontario was found to be as low as lemon juice and vinegar. Even unpolluted rain comes in around 5.5 tho it's not strongly acidic so it takes very little pH up to get it to 7.

:peace:
 
Rainbow Warrior

Rainbow Warrior

Well-Known Member
OldMedUser said:
I wasn't growing back then but have been growing steady since I moved up here to northern Alberta in 2001. Town water is horrible so used RO water for drinking and growing ever since. We bought a new Brita filter for the town water and it still tasted like shit so it's been RO since.

We bought this acreage in 2003 and the water for the house comes out of a dugout on the property and isn't fit to drink. We only filter it down to 5 micron and there is no sterilization. Around 400ppm and pH8 so wouldn't want to feed that to my plants either. I want to put in my own RO unit but need better pre-filtration and a UV sterilizer if we are going to drink it tho not if just for the plants. Standard RO units come with just a 5 micron pre-filter and we already do that so would want a 1 micron then a 0.5 micron carbon filter to get rid of the taste before it hits the RO membrane. Then a de-ionizing filter to get it really clean before it goes through the UV unit.

I've done quite a bit of research and found out that smaller gal/day units last longer per gal and cost a lot less. Best to get a good food grade container and rig it up with a float valve so your RO can run slowly and steadily rather than pump out lots of water for a short period of time then shut down.
Click to expand...
Gee whiz, thanks to ur advice; I’m a bit of a hobby plumber, so I will start buliding a water rig ASAP.
Have a good wknd! :weed:

RW
:peace:
 
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