Tap Water and BlueLab

[tronN00dles]

Hey folks,

Bit of an odd situation here, but is it possible for tap water to contain 0 ppm? I have a Blue Lab EC pen that is registering 0 ppm. My assumption then was my pen is either broken or needs calibrating. I maintain it and clean it regularly as per the manufacturers recommendations.

I check my water every couple of days and for the longest time it would average 40ppm, until a few days ago.

Anyhow, I recalibrated the pen and tested it in standard solution and it seems to be reading accurately. I also mixed up a nutrient solution where GH provides the mixed ppm assuming RO water and my pen is giving me that exact value as if I were using RO water.

So is my tap water actually 0 ppm or is there something else going on here?There should be some chlorine and calcium in my water though as per municipal water reports though. Funny enough, it seems the pH of my water has also changed in the past couple of weeks. It had been around 7.8, but now seems to have dropped to 6.8. Perhaps there’s something funky going on at the water treatment plant?

 

[St. Tom]

Hey folks,

Bit of an odd situation here, but is it possible for tap water to contain 0 ppm? I have a Blue Lab EC pen that is registering 0 ppm. My assumption then was my pen is either broken or needs calibrating. I maintain it and clean it regularly as per the manufacturers recommendations.

I check my water every couple of days and for the longest time it would average 40ppm, until a few days ago.

Anyhow, I recalibrated the pen and tested it in standard solution and it seems to be reading accurately. I also mixed up a nutrient solution where GH provides the mixed ppm assuming RO water and my pen is giving me that exact value as if I were using RO water.

So is my tap water actually 0 ppm or is there something else going on here?There should be some chlorine and calcium in my water though as per municipal water reports though. Funny enough, it seems the pH of my water has also changed in the past couple of weeks. It had been around 7.8, but now seems to have dropped to 6.8. Perhaps there’s something funky going on at the water treatment plant?

You can google your water in your area also ages ago mine barely used to register on mine and i used to have very soft water but now its gone up also my tap walter ph has gone a little higher so thats possible also once you add any nutes even just your a before your b are you then getting a reading

 

[St. Tom]

Also did your meter come with any solution as mine did and you can test it in that its 2.77 or 2.76 them you would know its accurate

 

[tronN00dles]

Also did your meter come with any solution as mine did and you can test it in that its 2.77 or 2.76 them you would know its accurate

Yep, it came with a 2.77 reference solution and it’s reading 2.8 EC.

Perhaps it’s a rounding thing, as I noticed the 500 ppm scale seems to round to the nearest 10. Maybe my ppm is just under 5 and it’s rounding down to 0?

As for community water report, the most recent was from January and it measured at 16ppm. Pretty clean water around here for sure.

 

[St. Tom]

Yep, it came with a 2.77 reference solution and it’s reading 2.8 EC.

Perhaps it’s a rounding thing, as I noticed the 500 ppm scale seems to round to the nearest 10. Maybe my ppm is just under 5 and it’s rounding down to 0?

As for community water report, the most recent was from January and it measured at 16ppm. Pretty clean water around here for sure.

id say that sound s right so you have very close to ro water just make sure in coco your using calmag