What water do you use?

I'm only growing 6 plants right now so I'm using bottled mineral water from the store. I'm not checking the PH or anything but I have a good amount of rock dust in each plant which I have read is very good for solving any PH problems you might have. My plants all appear quite healthy, but is the bottled mineral water the best I can use or should I be using something else? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Are you giving them any nutes? In what doses?
Rock dust? pls elaborate

I use water from my RO filter, gives me a perfect 7.0 PH and no more than 10 ppm of solids dissolved in it. I bring down the PH to 5.8 with PH Down, mix in my 3 part Advanced Hydroponics Dutch Formula G B M and water the plantings.

From my experience, Mineral water has a lot of good stuff in it for the plants, well beware if it has high amounts of Sodium, might be bad. The problem I have when using mineral water is the High PH (7.9 - 8.5 where I am) and the high amount of dissolved solids in it (the minerals) makes it not the best alternative for me to dissolve my nutes in.

Check the stickied thread about water on this forum.

The only thing in the water is two tablespoons of the fish blood I add to every water can. Other than that the only nutes are what is in the soil (bat guano, a little seaweed, some bloodmeal and the limestone rock dust. Is the mineral water better than the standard bottled drinking water? Is there much of a difference?

From what I know, mineral water can be either from a natural mineral spring, or it can be plain old filtered water with added minerals. Standard bottled drinking water can be tap water that has been run through a filter before bottling, you can achieve the same effect by attaching a filter (such as a RO filter) to your tap.

Mineral water has more dissolved solids in it than standard bottled drinking water.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

So which one is better?

mackdown said:

So which one is better?

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RO water is the best but you will have to add cal/mag before using it.

Its just weed. Tap water is perfect. There are actually beneficial dissolved solids in tap water... like Ca. And, get this, its free! I use tap water that has been sitting out for 24 hours... add my nutes... ph to 5.8 and go.

i use good old tap water and ph to 5.8 - 6........if its good enough for me its good enough for them....

lol you would be buying a lot of bottled water when they get big........

mackdown said:

So which one is better?

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Well I was hoping you would make that conclusion yourself.

RO is best if you are fanatic about getting a perfect nutrient solution (since it has no dissolved solids), Tap water works fine too.

i actually heard they like "fiji water" best.

(this is a joke)

Tap or rain water is best. Many of the bottled waters have all the goodies plants crave filtered out, especially distilled....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVPcr4p121A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs