Hello. I am new to growing and was wondering if anyone could give me their opinion on this water I’m using for my plants.
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Basically it’s RO water. The price is good. I would use it for sure.
My go-to is rainwater. If I don’t have rain water I use RO water. I don’t have access to RO water I use distilled water.
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Hello, how do you collect the rain water, store it and keep it good for plant use? I could do something like that.
You may not want to do this but the way I do it to collect the rain water I cut my drain pipe on the side of my house and I keep a 55 gallon drum underneath the pipe.
Let’s say the 55 gallon drum filled halfway during a rain. I would simply pour it in the 5 gallon buckets put a lid on it and bring it in the house.
That’s just how I do it. You go through a lot of water fast. If you are going to collect rainwater don’t let it sit outside. Or larva will build up inside very fast. Put them in a bucket put a lid on top bring it in the house and it’s good for a long time.
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I use those fillup stations. Well, I quit using one because they went from .25 to .50 cents a gallon. But ya, I use the fillup station. Basically pure water.
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Look at the water report for your county and decide based on that. Mine for example is super mineral rich but is heavily shocked for treatment. I filter it with a cheap carbon filter to remove the chlorine, fluoride and sulpher. Its easy, cheap and cuts down on my footprint since im not buying uneeded plastic.
If youre on a well that is maintained, more than likely your water is fantastic straigh out of the pipe!
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I snagged 2, 5 gallon jugs from work and fill them at the Watermill Express here in Denver. $1.50 for 5 gallons is pretty good. RO is a blank slate so you need to add at least 300-350 ppm for it to hold it’s pH and not drift to the soils pH.
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I use tap water, I used distilled for a couple grows got tired of buying and carrying it. So went to tap I just let it sit for a couple days to gas off anything it needs to. If I run the dehumidifier I dump the reservoir to my water bucket if not just tap. I literally found zero difference in the grow. I use jacks 321 in both my ppm is a touch higher with tap. Other than that I found using distilled or RO a waste of time and money. Others may disagree to each their own.
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I personally use my tap water since the PPMs are quite low. Just to help sterilize it more and kill any chlorine, I add a squirt of 3% hydrogen peroxide and let it sit for 12-24 hours before using it to feed
Something I highly recommend, is to pull up a survey on your local tap water to get a better idea of what you’re putting into your plants using your tap water. Here’s a good link to help with that = https://mytapwater.org/
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I wish I could just use my tap water. Chloramine does not gas off and it is in my city water.
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Some places the tap water PPM is so outrageously high… that people don’t have a choice but to either purchase distilled water, or use an RO system 
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It’s my understanding that organic growers need to avoid water with anti-bacterials in it like chlorine and chloramine because the roots rely on microorganisms to get nutrients from the soil. Folks who are growing in soil but using liquid nutrients don’t need to worry about it because they are feeding their plants what they need in a readily absorb-able form. Does anyone else concur with that reasoning?
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Not sure I agree with that entirely. Chlorine also has it’s share of benefits and concerns - but can be cancelled out by adding peroxide to your feed water after letting it sit for at least half a day
Chloramine on the other hand is just absolutely detrimental overall to plant growth
Whether the nutes are synthetic or organic, it still can cause a lot of problems and ugly leaf growth
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My city uses chloramine and I use it to water my plants during the summer outside and my experience has been that it hasn’t caused any problems. For my winter indoor grow I use rainwater just because I don’t need much in a 2x4 tent with 2 plants and I have a rain barrel that I made a few years ago.
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Do you also use Cal-Mag with rain water?
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Yes I use cal-mag and and i have tried Fox Farm products and Neptune’s Harvest and Advanced Nutrients products all with good effect, so I’m not yet an organic grower.
I did notice a new shop opened near me that sells organic soils and amendments and everything for true organic growing so I’m anxious to try that.
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Yes absolutely, I add 300 EC of Cal mag every other feeding when using rainwater. I’ve never had a Cal mag deficiency doing it this way. Here personally my rainwater has 2EC - 5EC before adding anything
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Absorbing acid will remove the chloramine and chlorine.
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I use rainwater and boil it to kill anything that may be growing
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I use a Brondell Coral three stage under cabinet filter. It removes chlorine and chloramine along with about 70 other contaminants. The filters last a year and only cost around $70 for refill cartridges.
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