Best medium to grow in for hard water?

Y

yosim

Well-Known Member
hello, I am currently growing in soil but have a problem with Calcium building up in the soil and locking out other stuff, it happens every grow. Pretty sure this is due to the fact that my water is on the hard side

usually i get a mag deficiency, so i will add a mag supplement but this seems to make things worse due to the added mag and also the calcium building up

I was wondering would i be better off switching to an alternative way of growing, would Coco be less susceptible to a calcium buildup or even a hydroponic system would that be a better option for me?

Worst case i could look at getting an RO system installed but i dont really have the room for it
 
coreywebster

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
Reduce your nutrients, water until more run off and don't let them soak the run off back up.

I have hard water, as do millions of others. If you look at a nutrient feed chart the difference between hard, soft and normal feeding is a reduction in ppm or an increase in ppm in soft water. There are hard water nutrients available too which I guess would have less calcium.

I like coco, but to be honest I don't think there is a "best medium" just ones that suit some people better than others.
 
vostok

vostok

Well-Known Member
yosim said:
hello, I am currently growing in soil but have a problem with Calcium building up in the soil and locking out other stuff, it happens every grow. Pretty sure this is due to the fact that my water is on the hard side

usually i get a mag deficiency, so i will add a mag supplement but this seems to make things worse due to the added mag and also the calcium building up

I was wondering would i be better off switching to an alternative way of growing, would Coco be less susceptible to a calcium buildup or even a hydroponic system would that be a better option for me?

Worst case i could look at getting an RO system installed but i dont really have the room for it
Click to expand...
in most cases bulk watering is not required until you hit bud ??

I'd be watering with RO/store bought iniatially then a mixutre of home and store bought

then later .. I'd be getting my water from Wall mart 20c/us gallon..??

Good luck
 
stoned-monkey

stoned-monkey

Well-Known Member
Have hard water I grow in soil rarely any problems. I do flush with distilled water. Also only use distilled in my aerocloner, almost lost a pump cause of rust.
 
Y

yosim

Well-Known Member
because i always seem to magnesium deficiency i was feeding cal-mag supplement to the plants, even when they went past seedling stage - this excess calcium combined with the hard water then starting locking out magnesium so of course i upped the calmag dose mistakenly, thereby making things worse :(

from reading above comments it seems i should be able to grow in soil with hard water, im not sure its even that hard relatively speaking, but i can limescale buildup in my kettle for example

so maybe i will go with soil again for next grow and feed magnesium only - but maybe every other feed or so

i did read earlier on growweedeasy that Coco tends to lack in calcium/magnesium so was wondering if that would suit my water better but not sure on the validity of that

thanks
 
stoned-monkey

stoned-monkey

Well-Known Member
well everyone's water is different, so maybe as a control for your next run water a plant seed to harvest with distilled/ro water the others your well. same pots, soil, nutes, everything else the same. see if these problems come up with the distilled/ro water too.
 
Dr. Who

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
Can you say RO?

Spend the coins and invest in an RO system....

Many have no Idea just how much more a plant reacts correctly to nutrient lines and charting, by using RO.
I build my own soils to the use of RO and never bother buffering it with a Ca/Mg product, in organic runs.

In my playing with synthetic's. My nutrient line has 5% Ca added. On a cpl of strains I run. I do have to add some Ca (2 ml per G) as they are Ca hogs. No Mg problems....
 
Kingrow1

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
stoned-monkey said:
well everyone's water is different, so maybe as a control for your next run water a plant seed to harvest with distilled/ro water the others your well. same pots, soil, nutes, everything else the same. see if these problems come up with the distilled/ro water too.
Click to expand...
Extract the salts yourself, boil down 50 litres to one litre then add to your plant medium, if it instantly dies buy ro, if it dosent then sweet, the problem wasnt your water.


Fucking spell check was made to piss us dyslexics off, how is litre not spelt like that... how have i spelt spelt wrong, fuck off correcting me!!!!
 
Kerovan

Kerovan

Well-Known Member
I have fairly hard alkaline water and grow in Fox Farms Ocean Forest. Use the water straight from the tap with no issues.
 
reuben rubbish

reuben rubbish

Well-Known Member
Hard water has calcium and traces of magnesium so don't ever use cal mag , my mate did use it and halved his usual yield... only difference from previous grows was using a cal mag supplement. Keep things simple. Especially in soil. I use canna terra vega and flores for veg and flowering respectively and canna zym and ryzotonic the whole way through but I rarely use the recommended doses usually half the recommended dose maybe 3/4 , and always ph the water after adding nutrients and supplements as after adding the ph is dropped by the acidity of the nutes. My 10 pence worth anyway.
 
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