Hi again,I very much appreciate all the input thus far. Sorry if I’m just bombarding the forum with questions and possibly in the incorrect manner. Where I live has many minerals in the water, enough to stain drains, so we got a water softener years ago. The water softener uses salt so I’m guessing not a great idea. There are some faucets not hooked up to the softener, but those have the high mineral count. Should I just buy, and keep buying the 5 gallon jugs of water at Walmart or wherever? Just seems like I’ll need quite a bit of water for ,600 watts per plant in 25 gallon bags especially once they get bigger.
There is very clean river water here but I’ll freeze my ass off trying to fill jugs in that. Possibly an incredibly stupid question, but is bringing in buckets of snow and allowing them to thaw and warm to room temperature a possibility? Must be the same as rain water.
Have you thought about getting an RO system? We have hard, stinky water, so after moving in we had a whole house water softener installed, along with an RO system at the kitchen sink. I use that water on my plants with no problem. That doesn’t address your original question, though. I’ll be watching the thread.
Water software water is definitely a no no lol as far as the melted snow absolutely you can use it but youl be melting ALOT of snow that 5 gallon bucket packed with snow is only going to melt down to a half gallon to a gallons worth of water as mentioned by @Twelve1 id suggest investing into a ro system even a cheap 3 stage system off Amazon for around 50 bucks does the job just fine for me i usually fill up 2 5 gallon jugs at a time
30 years ago when I started someone gave me this advice…I had baby pools in the basement, I’d drag garbage cans of snow down there to melt to end up with 5 gal of dirty ass water.
I read that you are using 25 gallon bags and I imagine there is more than 1 bag???
Do not use water from your softener. Do not bother with the idea of melting snow(too much work for too little reward). Pulling from the river might be problematic.
Just buy yourself an RO system. They make them that you can plug in from a garden hose. Then you can have a fitting for your shower-head that will go to a garden hose.
I also recommend you find a 55 gallon drum, that was used for food related stuff. Clean that thing out really good. Get a fitting that will go from RO out line to inside of 55 gallon drum. Fix a float liquid-stopping valve inside of the drum. Then you can have approximately 50 gallons of fresh RO ready to go at any time! Make sure you put an air-stone along with an air pump to keep the water fresh. Add a hydro pump inside the drum with a hose coming out . Have a switch installed inline with the pump so you can turn it on and off as needed.
Softeners either use a sodium or potassium based salt to exchange out the ions to make it soft water.
If you are getting staining it is probably iron (reddish brown) or manganese (blue black). Sodium is not good since you can turn a good soil into a bad soil over time by altering the sodium adsorption ratio.
Maybe you can dilute your water with the store bought? Possibly have it tested? The last two States I lived in the US, the soils were low in iron (although the groundwater was full of it), and we used a product called ironite. I’ve have learned a bit more about soil chemistry but definitely not enough.
Hope some of this information is helpful. Best to you!
I went down the water softener road. Every single water outlet in my house is softened water, even the outside hose bibs…not good. Once I figured that out I started buying water, what a drag… my solution was a cheap ro system. Ro buddy for like $50…
I use a small RO system and run my well water (softened) through it. RO systems waste a lot of water…but you are sure that it has nothing in it…only what you add.
Oh no, bearer of bad news might have ID’d a problem I got.
I neglected softener and a couple months ago bought some salts and fixed it up. And for last two months I been having problems after watering and trying to start seeds. It’s a whole-house system so all taps are spitting out softened water.
Hey @New2this thanks for bringin attn to this
Just wanted say that I’m using softened water ran through a RO water filter. The ppm’s after filtering through RO is approximately 5, my plants are happy and healthy using this water. Even though RO waste about 75% of the total water used, it’s worth it to me vs using and lugging around water from the store or from alternative sources. I believe RO system is the best way to get healthy water for your girls.
Here’s some pics of my girls using softened water filtered with RO
From what i remember its recommended to run water through a softner before through a RO system or else it will cut your filters life span in half realy quick hard water will F**k some stuff up quick lol
Yeah im on a well and it comes out the spigot at around 7.5 to 8.0 ph and around 740ppm to 820 ppm so a softner is definitely needed i need to get a company out here to do a check up and see if something cant be done to have fresher usable water also has a very high iron contents to it also sometimes it has almost a blood smell i alsp use alot of my waste water from my RO filters for outdoor plants and inside house pla ts they dont mind it 1 bit i just wont give it to the girls lol
Our muni water supply in SoCal was 550 ppm at the spigot so I purchased an R/O Buddy then went to one of the local car washes and picked up an empty barrel used for soap. Brought that home, cleaned it out and used as a reservoir for R/O water: run the thing until full then pumped from there. Worked great. @Not2SureYet does something similar. He also captures the waste water and uses to water the yard.
So glad i saw this. I don’t have a softener, but have way too much chlorine. Got a nice water filter thing and my son is even going to run water to grow room for a slop sink. Live alone, so who cares about a few holes…
This is a second bedroom that i use. Now i have a few 6 and 8" holes in floor for exhaust, couple in ceiling, now water going in. I am a lucky ole gal. Hope the next owners don’t mind.
Sorry about the long post.
Water softeners backwash with brine. I have mine set to backwash every 15 days. On the morning after the backwash there may be a trace amount of salt in the water. I’m not sure it’s enough to harm a plant. Most homes have a whole house filter after the water softener. When I moved in, I had rusty fart water. I had to Install an iron filter that aerates the water to remove the hydrogen sulfide. That filter backwashes with a few ounces of hydrogen peroxide. I does get cloudy water after a backwash, but it turns clear in a minute. Reverse osmosis filters will remove valuable minerals. That’s what I learned about water filters and softeners. I hope it helps.
Water softeners remove valuable minerals too. Not all bottled waters are the same, some may contain sodium. It is widely advised to not use water softener water for house plants, so I don’t. I do have a valve before the filters, and I take water from there. Smells like farts but has a lot of iron. Well water.
Yes it does, so it’s important that anyone using RO water to be aware of that. But it also removes harmful elements in the tap water,like dissolved heavy metals. As long as you use a full nutrient line that provides everything your plants needs, there’s no problem using RO. I like the idea knowing that my water only has what I put in it.
Having a clean slate is the best way to eliminate unseen variables. I’m only guessing what’s in my water. I’ve lived here for a year and I sent in the free water test from Home Depot three times and never got one back. I started watering my tomatoes in containers with water straight from the well, but stained the patio with rust. For the rest of the year I used iron filtered, sulfur removed, aerated then softened then filtered again water. The tomatoes were fine. I’m growing in soil and kind of shy away from liquid nutrients for now at least. A few dry amendments and top dressing. All my plants that made it past seedling are healthy and suddenly having a growth spurt. I had problems with germination this time around. I’m wondering if it was over attention or the water. I had no problems on my first run with germination. I need to get a reliable water test.
We have a water softener here and it bugged out a few years back and spit out resin beads throughout our whole water system plugging every faucet that had a filter on it. We shut it down.
When I started growing I tested our water and it is just above 7 pH and 50 ppm. Either the water treatment plant has updated their treatment system or the previous home owners bought something they did not need.
might have ID’d a problem I got.
