Yeah I’ve wanted to do that for years, but only recently found out about the tech. I don’t know how long it’s actually been out. It would be great to Set up a very precise almost automated system for perfectly dialing in a plants needs.
I wish the cuvettes weren't so costly, wonder if they can be reused since they are glass. The reagents are also costly. Looking at the options, it seems like it can test for all the elements we would want to track, including even dissolved oxygen, chlorine. Really would eliminate any guess work. I am considering that with this I could use my tap water since it's around 180 PPM, probably mostly calcium and magnesium. If I can quantify exactly how much is there and only add whats required to get it where I want then I can ditch the RO filter and save some hassle there (I hate changing the filters).
Are you on city or town water? If you are contact the city they will have a lab breakdown of their supplied water if it's not supplied on their website. Otherwise if your on well water you take it to a lab for testing.
Well the water does change as it goes thru pipes and my water values change when our reservoir seasonally turns. Also want to be able to test nutrients.
Whoa. I was just talking to a sales rep at Growlink about adding this to their automated fertigation. Great minds think alike eh?
Huh?
Do you have a roofline to collect water? You could buy a used 1000 or 1250 litre tote to collect rainwater for less than $100. A rainfall amount of 3/8" on a 1500 sq ft rooftop building would collect you 1300 litres of water in one dump. If your on town water it saves you water and sewer and beyond the tote it's free water with next to zero ppm, you would just have to test your shingles as new ones can affect your ph and ppm.
Colorado only allows a specific amount of rain water collection, I think it's 55 or 110 gallons. They didn't allow any collection until a year or two ago.
I just checked and they did change the law allowing up to 110 gallons of collection.
Hi Renfro,
So the driver I ordered lives up to it's price and was DOA. It's hanging on the front door waiting for UPS pickup.
Good to hear it held calibration!.. We may be in the same aquifer, even tho Im in Ok... the guy that drilled our well said that this aquifer is fed by Colorado melting snow, rain, etc, and it takes 7 years for it to get here from there. Your numbers are right on par with my well water. It floats around just a little 277ppm-325ish.... its hard as fuck, but it's clean. I get about a 7.6 - 7.8PH out of the tap. It'll be interesting to see how this experiment turns out!
My tap comes from the Pueblo reservoir, fed off the Arkansas river.
Dude I switched to tap years ago and never looked back. As long as it’s decent tap you are gonna save so much time and money.
Cool... now that I have a few under my belt, Im going to experiment with a few things as well. Different feed, training, etc... I guess I have time to do that now. LOL... Good to hear you back up and running man!
Man.. I was on Rural Water District for years. It's the same damn water I get now, but alot cheaper with your own well. I think it was roughly $8500 for the drill/well/wellhouse.. I got a bill about 4 years ago for $714.00 for that month. My dad was watering the piss out of everything that grew. I had to choke him out!... but now, we can run 7 tower sprinklers 24/7 and keep everything green (mostly lawn) for about 18 bucks a week (cost for pump power) for all water/showers, laundry, anything water. It's 220 ft deep to the bottom of the aquifer, and hit water at 70 ft. So!. we have 150 ft of water we can draw from... dude told me that if we ran it 24/7, my great, great grandkids would still not run out of water... I told him I dont have grandkids. LOL