Beneficials & Brita-filtered tap water?

supaleeb

Active Member
Hey guys,

So I have this Brita filter lying around, and it seems to reduce my tap water from 150ppm to about 80ppm. Anybody have any idea what it's capable of removing? It would be pretty awesome if it took care of some of the chlorine, since I have a feeling the chlorine in my tap water is what is making it futile to use beneficials in my rez's..
 

Heisenberg

Well-Known Member
What products are you using? How have you been using them? What method are you growing?

I use tap water, aged at least 6 hours, and my bennies do just fine.

The Brita FAQ states: The activated carbon in the Filter will reduce the chlorine by up to 99%.
 

supaleeb

Active Member
Thanks for the response. I'm using subculture B & M. I was dealing with root rot issues and never could get the beneficials to take to the roots. If you let the tap water sit for 6 hours, does the chlorine eventually evaporate or something? I have a 18gal rubbermaid filled with filtered water I've been stocking up over the last few days, so this looks promising.
 

Heisenberg

Well-Known Member
It depends on your local water plant which could use either chlorine or chloramine. Chlorine will evaporate, chloramine will not. If you occasionally catch a whiff of chlorine from your tap water, then your water plant probably doesn't use chloramine. I'm no chemist but I believe the carbon filter will catch both types. Chlorine will be evaporated after 24 hours, or less if you aerate the water with a bubble stone. I have found that 6 hours is enough for me.

Are you growing DWC? Root Rot is fairly easy to get under control. I personally would sterilize the roots with a strong h2o2 treatment, and then rinse before inoculating with microbes. The GH sub cultures are a bit over priced but still quality products.

You may have better luck feeding and multiplying the microbes outside of the res in a tea style brew. This way your products will last longer and you can introduce new microbes to the res every few days. The tea is brewed for two days, so the microbes are already active when you add them to the res. If you want more details I have a post here.
 

supaleeb

Active Member
It depends on your local water plant which could use either chlorine or chloramine. Chlorine will evaporate, chloramine will not. If you occasionally catch a whiff of chlorine from your tap water, then your water plant probably doesn't use chloramine. I'm no chemist but I believe the carbon filter will catch both types. Chlorine will be evaporated after 24 hours, or less if you aerate the water with a bubble stone. I have found that 6 hours is enough for me.
Yeah, probably Chlorine then. Cool beans.

Are you growing DWC? Root Rot is fairly easy to get under control. I personally would sterilize the roots with a strong h2o2 treatment, and then rinse before inoculating with microbes. The GH sub cultures are a bit over priced but still quality products.
Yeah, they are. I'm switching over to the house brand for subculture-M at my local shop next time I need to restock. I'm actually running Aero/DWC. Similar to Stinkbud's veg unit, but most of the bottom of the top unit (and lid of the bottom) has been cut out so that the roots can drop right down into the nutrient in the rez below.

You may have better luck feeding and multiplying the microbes outside of the res in a tea style brew. This way your products will last longer and you can introduce new microbes to the res every few days. The tea is brewed for two days, so the microbes are already active when you add them to the res. If you want more details I have a post here.
I'll be following. Thanks for the tip. I'd +rep you if I hadn't already done so a while back for something else.
 

homebrewer

Well-Known Member
I'm currently doing a grow where I'm testing beneficials in an Ebb and Flow system. You may be interested in following along before you go to any extra effort to 'help' the bugs. I've already run one test and noticed a few things, this new journal is hoping to duplicate my results (or lack thereof).
 
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