Autos love calcium and magnesium and your RO water would be completely void of them. I would start using a cal/mag supplement with every watering
Well spotted. What i do is, pour tap water ,
(That has stood open at air for 10 days, so it comes up to room temp, and de gasses, and re gasses 02 and co2)
Into the RO that has had the same open air gassing. Until the ppm of the RO is around 130-180ppm or 0.2 ec.
The great difference between this method and the mono cal and mono mag (Cal.mag shop bought), is that conditioned tap water, used as an RO buffer, retains other "Trace" and mineral qualities, that include, importantly "chloride" and "Sodium" (Cell Builders) and nitrates, sulfur, and trace soft metals, (shown below)not found in basic cal/mag used as a buffer. Which it is not supposed to be used for !!
Here is a list of just a few of the chemicals routinely added to our (Uk) water supply: And are very handy for growing, strong plants with, once the tap water is correctly gassed up, or aerated, for the correct period of time. it goes without saying, calcium & magnesium are also present in potable tap water, for free.......
- Liquified chlorine
- Fluorosilicic acid
- Aluminium sulphate
- Calcium hydroxide
- Sodium silicofluoride
Typical Tap Water Content:
- Chlorine
- Fluorine compounds
- Trihalomethanes (THMs)
- Salts of:
- arsenic
- radium
- aluminium
- copper
- lead
- mercury
- cadmium
- barium
- Hormones
- Nitrates
- Pesticides
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That why is use pottable tap water to 130-190ppm to buffer RO at 0.00Ec....... because at 130ppm you have fine "Bottled" water.
You cannot measure tap water against bottled water with Ec & Ph, untill both are at room temperature and fully gas saturated at ATM. And both are the same temperature. Then compare, you might be surprized at both results.....hope this helps with water query,s. bearing in mind it is the single most important part of growing = Water Quality" HB