New Grower A question about water...

[Dazed]

Rainwater! Contains nutrients and is super oxygenated (so I believe), my plants love it.

 

[pop22]

So the wife and I are moving in a couple weeks...our new place is in the mountains and has an on-property well...

In the garage there is a salt filtration system and pump, I assume to soften the water. I've been told the water
up there has a relatively high amount of sulphur....I assume it has a high level of mountain-based minerals as well.

Q: Is water with a high sulphur level detrimental to AF's?

Q: Should I use the "post salt-filtered" water?

If this isn't enough information, what information about the water should I be seeking out?


Cheers!

Just like too much nutes, too much minerals and or sulfur in your water can cause lockout. I'd not use water from a water softener either, unless its run thru a good filter first. Get an average "whole house" filter with a carbon filter. You can get the whole thing for around $60.

 

[pop22]

Rainwater! Contains nutrients and is super oxygenated (so I believe), my plants love it.

Unless you live in the Northeast or New England. Then you have our lovely acid rain..........

 

[Trapper]

You should have your straight out of the well water tested to see what you have.

The sulfer could affect your cannabis plants without regard to photosensitivity.

As to using your salt softened water on your cannabis or other plants. I would not.
Most systems have a bypass for watering plants and such.
You may need to get or make a RO filter if your well water is too hard.
You can buy them now for dirt cheap, so shop around, If you aren't using some serious quantities of water a personal sized filter is totally adequate.

The kitchen sink has a built in RO filter, but I found that using RO water was difficult because it was tough to buffer (no minerals to attach to) and wouldn't hold buffer very long.
I know that if I add CaMg to RO water it will then take a buffer better...

 

[Trapper]

Rainwater! Contains nutrients and is super oxygenated (so I believe), my plants love it.

There won't be a ton of that coming with enough frequency to count on here in SW Colorado...next moisture will be snow.

 

[Dr Who]

Soft vs hard water

I think that if reverse osmosis is a possibility for softening the water, but presents problems in terms of buffering of the resulting soft water, then blending of untreated water with RO filtered water might present a good solution. You could mix them to get whatever water hardness you wanted with a bit of experimentation.

 

[Trapper]

Yup....I mixed triple-filtered RO water from the store with relatively hard local water here aprox. 50/50 during my last grow....

Good call.