Hi. I live in a hard water area. Ph is 7.6. Both my brows, the last organic, have started very well presumably as the plant feeds on the soil, but start or flower things seems to turn. I’ve posted many of my issues and got varied response but I would like to rule out my water being the route issue. If my water is too hard could it be locking nutrients out and if so what filter can I use to resolve this issue. Please don’t say RO as I’m really can’t fit all that gubbins under my sink.
If I’m not mistaken they make inline waterhose filters, but I dont know anything about them or how they preform, my water is about 300 ppms and at 7.4-7.6 ph I just use an activated charcoal filter to remove the chlorine.
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So are you agreeing that hard tap water is not that good for watering and I should use a filter of som sorts? How about rain water or even mineral water bought in bulk maybe?
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yes it can be very detrimental to the plants, as well as high ph, I have to ph mine because I am in coco coir. I believe rainwater is very good for soil grows as it tends to be neutral on the ph scale. I have not done organics though so I dont know the ideal ph for it.
My EC meter has 6 setting and I’m unsure which one everybody uses. Does .5 or .7 when in ppm mode mean anything to you?
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The ppm 700 scale is based on measuring the KCl or potassium chloride content of a solution. The ppm 500 is based on measuring the NaCl or sodium chloride content of a solution and is also referred to as TDS - total dissolved solids. Individual nutrient ions have different electrical effects. The true ppm of a solution can only be determined by a chemical analysis. ppm cannot be accurately measured by a CF or EC meter. These are present on Bluelab products as a conversion guide only. The conversion is as follows:
2.4EC x 500 = 1200ppm (500 scale) or 1200ppm / 500 = 2.4EC
2.4EC x 700 = 1680ppm (700 scale) or 1680ppm / 700 = 2.4EC
Now all that being said it is Chinese to me, I believe my tds meter is the 500 scale, but I’m not entirely sure.
Mother of God I’m spinning now. I’ll try to absorb this and work out how to compute in my tiny mind. People on these forums always talking about ppm, EC and so I buy a meter thinking it will help and down the rabbit hole I go. Thanks man anyway.
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No problem, I will say, if your ppms are showing up as more than 300-350 I would get a filter.
I will be now. Is a charcoal filter like Brita good enough or do I have bite the bullet and go full RO?
@Nicholas You can buy a inline whole home filter and buy different levels of filtering for it. I bought mine from walmart but lowe’s and everywhere home related pretty much carries them. I believe I spent 60 bucks on setup and put it in where my main water line come’s into the house and everything passes through that filter before it goes anywhere in the house. I used to have such hard well water I kept CLR around to soak faucets and fixtures. Not anymore really helped me and now I just use distilled white vinegar to ph my water or nutrient mix to where I need it roughly 6.2-6.5ph Hope this helps.
I’m looking into this already. Great info. Don’t have Walmart here as I’m U.K based but will do some research. Thanks again bud.
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