New Grower RO 6th stage good or bad?

[Sauce]

So my next grow I will be putting in an RO system. Getting clean water not only costs over the long run, but is a pain to have to go out all the time. So I am looking at Ro systems.


Atm, I am looking at 5 and 6 stage ROs. The six stage says "The 6th stage features alkaline and mineral filter that adds a small amount of calcium and magnesium minerals (30-60 mg/l), just enough to make the water slightly alkaline and improves the taste." I will be using LED and trying hydro, so not sure if thats going to be a bad thing or not.

Thanks.

 

[az2000]

I wouldn't get the feature to add back minerals (or increase ph) unless I wanted it for my own health. For your plants, you can control it more reliably with calmag and ph up. Probably cheaper than replacing a cartridge.

If you get an RO system, consider buying a "permeate pump." It reduces the backpressure on the RO cartridge's membrane, and flushes the membrane across it's dirty side using the water going to the drain. It's supposed to increase the gallons filtered-to-waste ratio, and increase the pressure/volume going into the holding tank. (You're supposed to replace a pressure valve in the unit too to allow for that increased pressure/volume to the tank.).

I haven't installed an RO system yet. But, I've researched and decided what I'll do when I decide to do it.

 

[Muddy]

I wouldn't buy one with the 6th stage unless I knew how many PPM of cal/mag it's putting back into the water. Most RO systems will reduce the PPM to less than 10. For use in growing mj the PPM needs to be in the 100 - 125 range before nutrients are added so a cal/mag supplement is used to raise it. As long as the 6th stage isn't putting more than that level back in it should work fine. If it's putting more than that back in it could be problematic.

 

[Sauce]

I wouldn't buy one with the 6th stage unless I knew how many PPM of cal/mag it's putting back into the water. Most RO systems will reduce the PPM to less than 10. For use in growing mj the PPM needs to be in the 100 - 125 range before nutrients are added so a cal/mag supplement is used to raise it. As long as the 6th stage isn't putting more than that level back in it should work fine. If it's putting more than that back in it could be problematic.

I did not know that, thank you for that information bud. I thought you just went with a low ppm, added the nutes and thats that.