Grow Mediums Hard water

[Sublime Rasta]

I moved last week, and I finally finished setting things up. I germinated 10 new girls, and several of them showed early signs of nute burn. I completely forgot to test the PPM of my tap water, and it is around 430 PPM. It is also city water so I assume it has a low amount of chlorine.

I can afford a reverse osmosis unit, but I have read they are really slow. If my research is right the moderate units can only put out about 5 gallons per hour. This would result in a lot of unwanted waiting for me.

Are there any better solutions for my problem? Thanks for the help.

 

[Bilbo]

Save yourself a fortune and buy some Hard Water nutes, my area is hard water too so I use Vitalink Hard Water Max Grow/Bloom and don't have a problem. If the chlorine worries you leave the water in an open/loosely covered container for a day(somewhere it won't get contaminated of course) and the chlorine problem will be no more

 

[strakey]

I have the same problem as well with my ppm at around 230-250. Didnt make a diff for me. I used the canna a+b which is designed for it and reduced my cal mag a bit. If u have a culture it might kill it off otherwise u should be fine ammending your mix

 

[KannibisKing]

Yeah just buy hard water nutes dude, i have hard water in my area u can always check what type of water you have on the companies website.

 

[Gloomshade]

I had to google "0.8 EC to PPM" Still dont know what my PPM is, or which PPM I'm supposed to be using, or if you guys are all talking about the same PPM unit of measurement.

My tap water comes out at 0.8 EC, I used Canna classic nutrients and grew fat buds, just based my nutrient regime around their light feeding schedule...but once you're under way the plants are telling you which way to go...then u just gotta balance out base and additives however you want.

I messed around using my water filter, and even went out and bought a cheap RO unit it might be worth it, it might not, but at the end of the day joe blogs up the road can grow weed in the dirt in his backyard and just water it with his hose... For sake of ease...i just use water out the tap...its good enough to drink....its good enough to feed my plants.

 

[pop22]

" joe blogs up the road can grow weed in the dirt in his backyard and just water it with his hose..."

Yep, anybody can grow weed. BUT, I want to grow GOOD weed! So its worth a little extra effort and a few dollars more to grow top shelf bud! Doesn't mean you can't do it on a budget, just means you have to know where its ok to cut corners, and where not to.

 

[Bilbo]

I've still not managed to get my reservoir up above 1.6EC/16CF/800PPM yet, plants don't seem to enjoy it even though my nft hydro nutes dosage says to get it up to a plant burning 4.5 to 5.0EC!

 

[strakey]

You ec meter should have a conversion chart with it or the website will. Rough figures are 1 ec is about 500 ppm.

 

[Gloomshade]

Is it worth it though? My first ever hydro grow came out at 29 ounces 5 plants using shitty 0.8 tap water. Most people would have better tap water than me, im making changes in my grow tent but water isn't one of them. I can see the point in removing chlorine in some cases...but I dont really see the point in removing minerals and stuff you're going to pay money to buy in a bottle and add back in.

 

[steelrat]

I'm doing my first hydro grow and my water is hard and, like advised above, i just got a single-part, hard water nutrient :

http://www.growthtechnology.com/product/ionic-hydro/

There are plenty of hydro diaries that don't use RO, and it seems that there is less pH and PPM drift with tap water, but i do run mine through a cheap chlorine filter because my water supplier uses chloramine (chlorine and ammonia mixture).


All the best,

steely