Well, my tap water sucks balls

[bughouse loco]

G'day all,

 

I recently purchased a Bluelab EC truncheon and a small test tube liquid pH kit (can't afford a digital one yet) and tested my tap water after letting it sit for a few days. The EC is 0.8 and the pH is 7.5+, which I understand to be not too good.

 

My question is, do you think I should use it (with some pH down), or should I purchase distilled or some other bottled water each week? I am concerned about the cost of buying water, but it is only for a few pots so it may not cost that much each week.. (also I don't think a reverse osmosis system can be covered by my budget at the moment).

 

The seedlings are currently in rockwool cubes being watered with distilled water, but will soon be transplanted into 14L pots of 60/40 coco/perlite, with some clay balls on top and in the bottom. They will be hand watered with a pressure sprayer (I'm also not too sure about what EC levels to use with this setup). I tested some distilled water, which registered no EC and a pH of about 6.5, which I understand to be right for coco.. so if my crap tap water is going to cause dramas I'd probably just prefer to buy distilled, if it didn't end up costing too much...

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Cheers!

[Oz]

It's not drastically bad... Have you tested the water with your nutrients mixed up in it as they are more than likely going to change your PH reading again... Mix up a batch and let it sit for half hour before testing your PH again and tell us what you get.

If your really worried you could get yourself a R/O water filter for your tap.

[euph0rix]

Use it. My tap water is 490ppm and 7.89ph, my plants do fine.

[bughouse loco]

Thanks for the quick replies. I guess I'll use the tap water if it isn't too bad.

 

Oz, I haven't tried mixing it with nutes yet. I'm not really sure about the process (still pretty new to this). Do I just add my nutes to the water (I'm also going to be adding some Nulife AU 60 Root Repair stuff, which the hydro shop guy told me is the same as Rhizotonic), then test the EC? And if it's too high, just add more water? Then adjust pH after I have got the EC correct?

 

Cheers.

[WantDaChronic]

sounds like you have done your studying bughouse well thats how i have watered my plants atleast

[bughouse loco]

That I have WDC I do an insane amount of reading about all this, I'm just lacking in the actual experience and practice

 

Is anyone able to give me rough figures for what EC levels I should be maintaining throughout the grow?

 

I understand it is different for every system, but I'm not really sure what to use (other than starting with an EC of 1.. ?). And since my tap water EC is 0.8, does that mean my nutrient solution will be weaker than it should be if I was using better water? My nute bottles don't say what EC to use.

 

(I'm going to hand water 14L pots of 60/40 coco/perlite, with some clay balls on top and in the bottom, if this helps..)

 

Peace!

Edited August 7, 2007 by bughouse loco

[WantDaChronic]

coco is a great medium to grow in, just make sure your nutes are made for coco and you shouldnt have many problems at all.

 

my tap water isnt as bad as yours, its got a higher pH though but i just use 2.5mL to 1L when the plants are small and 5mL to 1.25L when the plants are larger. i once measured the EC of the larger batch and it was 2.8EC which i thought was fairly high so i mixed up my nutes in a bucket to 2.4EC and got the exact same results. i never actually got around to measuring the smaller batches of nutes as i have always had perfect results...but as i have to transplant some clones tonight, i'll measure the EC and post a reply in here after im done

[WantDaChronic]

damn mrs took over the pc again, i really need to get a second one

 

at 2.5mL to 1L of water my EC was 1.2

[Al B. Fuct]

The pH of my tapwater ranges between 7.5-8.2. I use Canna nutes. When I mix for 1400-1500ppm (no clue what that is on the EC scale, but I could find out), which is obtained with 400ml of each "A" and "B" in 125L, the pH buffers in the nutes set the pH to 5.8, pretty much every time.

 

5.8 is pretty good. I would not bother correcting that pH downward if I was not using rockwool floc in pots in my flood/drain systems. Rockwool has some limestone dust from mfg- this tends to push pH upward. After 4-5 days, the tanks will jump up to 6.5 or so. I run my tanks at 5.3-5.8, just a tick low, to compensate for the effect of rockwool on raising the tank pH.

 

I'm trialling the new FytoCell medium which is said to be pH5.5-7.0. I've run some water through a sample of the material and find that FC does not cause pH to rise as does rockwool. The water drained thru FC is of the same pH as it was when put in the material. If the stuff works out as well as I am hoping, I may no longer need to adjust pH down, other than when I top up the tanks with tapwater. Tapwater has dissolved limestone and other minerals which cause pH to rise, so I will have to correct pH down for that reason, but not for any effect from the media.

[Stoney]

hey there

 

i use rain water for my ladies and canna nutes including rhizotonic and cannazym now when i start from straight out the water tank my ppm sits at about 50-80ppm and the ph goes between 7-7.30ph

 

after i mix my canna A&B and anything else i need (i use some extras in flower) i get to about 1500ppm and a ph of 5.8-6 so pretty much right on the money for so i dont use much ph adjustment at all to start with

 

now i usually grow between 18-24 plants in the main room and they can suck some water over a 24hr period like atm they in first 2 weeks of flower and drinking about 20lt or so a day. So obviosly i top up abit and thats when ph adjustment comes into play. So once me res if full and nutes are back up to 1500ppm the ph is checked and adjusted using citric acid (cheaper and easier to use than ph +/-)

 

i find that the first time i top up the res its usually on the highish side but still ok but the second time there needs an adjustment but as i said depends on what sort of water volume i am adding at the time

 

so befor ya worry about getting an RO system or adjusting ya PH always add ya nutes and see what results ya get first than adjust if need be

 

hope this helps

 

cheerz