Difference between distilled and ro water for nutrients

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DanKiller

Well-Known Member
OldMedUser said:
Depends on the feed water for your distilled. I have a Polar Bear water distiller in the basement that gets water from a dugout on my property and without charcoal filtration and a catalyst bed it has a lot of volatile organic compounds in it. Those won't hurt anything if used for plants but has an off taste for drinking. With the RO setup I one day will put together the only thing in it will be a few ppm of minerals from the hard water. I may run 2 RO filters in a row to get it as near to zero as I can. The water is about pH 8 and up to 400ppm depending on the season. Cleanest after spring melt but the element burned out so I'll get around to putting a new one in one of these days and sell it. Refurbished are going for around $1600Can. New element is around $100. New they're over 3G. This one has a 10gal SS storage tank with a spigot and pressure pump.
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Bro.. distilled water are pure 0.0000 water.
No matter if they started from sewage or ocean water, stop talking nonsense.
The best RO system in the world will never reach 0.0000 like distilled.
It is true some distilled water brands add stuff to it because it's mainly used in automotive industry rather drinking their jugs.
But, again, distilled water is the most pure of all methods known to men.
 
TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Fellas, let's put the tape measures away and buckle the belts back up.

The question is:
Can I use distilled and RO water interchangeably for filling my res with feed?

The answer is:
Yes. The plants don't care about the specifics of all the science behind it or who invented the methods or .0005bf47 molecules blah blah blah.

Have an amazing day, errbody!!!
 
curious2garden

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
TCH said:
We have 3-3.5 days of rain in the forecast this week as well.
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It's the Mojave Desert so we see roughly 11 inches whether we need it or not. I do admit I thought about putting out a cup, collecting some rain and testing it's pH and EC. I am curious.
 
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OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Lou66 said:
You completely agree that there are standards that define industrial products and the words used to describe them?
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In what context is that relevant to the discussion at hand?
DanKiller said:
Bro.. distilled water are pure 0.0000 water.
No matter if they started from sewage or ocean water, stop talking nonsense.
The best RO system in the world will never reach 0.0000 like distilled.
It is true some distilled water brands add stuff to it because it's mainly used in automotive industry rather drinking their jugs.
But, again, distilled water is the most pure of all methods known to men.
Click to expand...
I don't know what you're on about. I said steam distilled, de-ionozied water had 0ppm but if the feed water has organic matter in it like the water from my dugout has some volatile organic molecules will come over with the steam that gives an off-taste to the water if used for drinking. Carbon filtration post-distilling will remove those.

I never said RO will be as pure. RO filters will only remove 90 - 95% of mineral salts so starting with 400ppm water the output should be around 30 - 40ppm. With a 2nd RO membrane in the line that can be reduced further to 3 or 4ppm.

Distilled water bought at stores can have fluoride added when it is for use to make baby food of all things and some can have minerals added as well. I have no clue as why they would add minerals if it was for use in the automotive industry but I don't buy it for that so you could be correct for all I know. I use RO water if I need to top up my car's cooling system as a few ppm isn't going to hurt anything.

The RO system I will be putting together with filter my feed water down to 0.5µ from the 5µ we have it at now for the tap water. I'll have a take-off right after the RO filter for use on plants then a feed to the UV filter which will have a take-off for use in my BUNN coffee maker then a feed to a calcite filter for 'polishing' the water and add back some minerals for better taste and raise the pH a bit for drinking water.

I have all the parts but haven't got around to hooking everything up yet but it will go like this pic. 1µ > standard carbon filter > 0.5µ carbon filter > RO > possible 2nd RO filter > UV > Calcite filter > drinking water.

Configuration01.JPG
 
Tolerance Break

Tolerance Break

Well-Known Member
OldMedUser said:
In what context is that relevant to the discussion at hand?


I don't know what you're on about. I said steam distilled, de-ionozied water had 0ppm but if the feed water has organic matter in it like the water from my dugout has some volatile organic molecules will come over with the steam that gives an off-taste to the water if used for drinking. Carbon filtration post-distilling will remove those.

I never said RO will be as pure. RO filters will only remove 90 - 95% of mineral salts so starting with 400ppm water the output should be around 30 - 40ppm. With a 2nd RO membrane in the line that can be reduced further to 3 or 4ppm.

Distilled water bought at stores can have fluoride added when it is for use to make baby food of all things and some can have minerals added as well. I have no clue as why they would add minerals if it was for use in the automotive industry but I don't buy it for that so you could be correct for all I know. I use RO water if I need to top up my car's cooling system as a few ppm isn't going to hurt anything.

The RO system I will be putting together with filter my feed water down to 0.5µ from the 5µ we have it at now for the tap water. I'll have a take-off right after the RO filter for use on plants then a feed to the UV filter which will have a take-off for use in my BUNN coffee maker then a feed to a calcite filter for 'polishing' the water and add back some minerals for better taste and raise the pH a bit for drinking water.

I have all the parts but haven't got around to hooking everything up yet but it will go like this pic. 1µ > standard carbon filter > 0.5µ carbon filter > RO > possible 2nd RO filter > UV > Calcite filter > drinking water.

View attachment 5363636
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I believe they add minerals to RO and Distilled water because they will leach ions like crazy, so the minerals make it less potentially damaging.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Tolerance Break said:
I believe they add minerals to RO and Distilled water because they will leach ions like crazy, so the minerals make it less potentially damaging.
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Damaging to what? RO water does not leach minerals from your body it just doesn't add any unless supplemented using a cartridge to add minerals back like some of those rip-off water systems sold to rubes at health food stores for $1000+. For a little over $100 I can get a better 'polishing' filter for my RO system that adds 4 mineral salts back to the RO water and raises the pH to around 8 like those more expensive units and would last for a decade. I just add a bit of table salt, himalayan pink salt and a drop of iodine to my daily mug of RO water. Tastes better and as I have low blood pressure the salts help to keep up enough I don't get dizzy when my BP drops sometimes.

Distilled or RO water is recommended in the auto industry for use in batteries or cooling systems as hard tap water can interfere with the anti corrosion properties in the anti-freeze or damage batteries.
 
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