I FEEL IM RIGHT ABOUT DISTILLED WATER BUT I MAY BE WRONG PLEASE HELP!?!?

Rickypsimer

Well-Known Member
I've just started my first grow in 40 years. I'm growing autoflowers outdoor in fabric pots tucked around the veggie garden. Not a great gardener, but not bad. Based on all I've read about cannabis, water is a concern for me. I pulled the data report from my local water district. Chloramine is not listed as one of the many contaminants. I'm allowing the chlorine to evaporate off for a few days before using. I did notice that the average pH at the tap is 7.8. My question, can I get away with using this alkaline tap water for soil grown (using Nectar #4)? Can I moderate it by top dressing with earthworm casting and compost? I don't yet have a pH meter. We use a Brita for our personal consumption, but I doubt that changes the pH much or would it? Thanks
Just let it air out like your doing and can use it just fine till you get a pH meter if your in soil lemon juice to bring pH down once you have the meter
 

raggyb

Well-Known Member
My 2 cents starts with fact that when I water my tomatos with tap, they are sort of like 'well ok, we'll live'. But when it rains they are like 'AHHHHHHHHHHHH!'. Green green green grow grow ah! On the other hand, I've watered indoor weed mostly with rain water and didn't notice a big difference from using tap. I'm not sure what the water dept gives a shit when they say chlorine but I think the water has chlorine not chloramine. A tiny bit of research indicated both bubbling water with an airstone or letting it sit in sunlight speed up the chlorine evaporation by like 5x. Another reason I believe this is I used to think it took 24 hrs for sitting water to degas when I had a fish tank, but my fish kept dying. Same water. I usually have a bubbling bucket of water sitting under the grow light. maybe it helps. What we need is a bioweb ecolife meter of some kind to see how our bennie bacteria are doing.
 

Gemtree

Well-Known Member
I'm switching from coco to organics and was wondering if rusty tap water is ok or should I continue with ro? My ppm is 250 and is hard calcium water with a good amount of rust (good ole michigan well water) but would it be bad if it builds up in the soil? Could I just flush a bit of ro through once in a while? Just trying to save on waste water now and was curious how it affects microbes and all that.
 

raggyb

Well-Known Member
I'm switching from coco to organics and was wondering if rusty tap water is ok or should I continue with ro? My ppm is 250 and is hard calcium water with a good amount of rust (good ole michigan well water) but would it be bad if it builds up in the soil? Could I just flush a bit of ro through once in a while? Just trying to save on waste water now and was curious how it affects microbes and all that.
i have no idea if this is safe or not but I wonder if you could add EDTA, hoping it would chelate the iron in the rust. it would do that to Ca too i think. but I couldn't tell if it works on iron oxide. i'm not a chemist just know the word chelate from gardening. where would you get EDTA raw IDK, it's a preservative in pickles but that probably has sodium salt in it so no don't add pickle juice. maybe there are already salts in the tap. citric acid might work too. that's probably in pH down. easier than looking for EDTA. EDTA might kill good bacteria too for all I know. so i just convinced myself. try adding pH down since no one complains about that here. see this. maybe helps :confused:

Citric Acid
Another crystalline organic acid that actively dissolves rust without attacking the metal is citric acid. It occurs natural in many fruits and has the added benefit of not being appreciably toxic. In fact the supersoar candies sold in stores are lace with crystals of citric acid! None the less, eating citric acid is not recommended as it might damage your tooth enamel. Like oxalic acid a fairly dilute solution can be used. When rusty parts are left overnight, the rust will be gone. Citric acid is superior to oxalic acid in that the iron salts formed are soluble where as the oxalates formed are not very soluble. Oxalic acid can leave a green deposit on steel that has been treated for rust. The citric acid forms iron citrate in solution which is reduced in direct sunlight to a colorless compound. For this reason clothing with rust stains can be treated with salt mixed with fresh squeezed lemon juice and left to dry in the sun. The rust stain will first turn green forming ferric citrate but then the UV rays from the sun cause the citric acid to reduce the iron to ferrous citrate which is white. There still is a crusty solid left behind so washing with the laundry is necessary. I also use
citric acid as a shower cleaner as well. It removes soap scum from shower doors and walls and clears hard water deposits that clog shower heads.


hopefully some expert chimes in

Edit: Molasses might do something with iron too.
 

Gemtree

Well-Known Member
i have no idea if this is safe or not but I wonder if you could add EDTA, hoping it would chelate the iron in the rust. it would do that to Ca too i think. but I couldn't tell if it works on iron oxide. i'm not a chemist just know the word chelate from gardening. where would you get EDTA raw IDK, it's a preservative in pickles but that probably has sodium salt in it so no don't add pickle juice. maybe there are already salts in the tap. citric acid might work too. that's probably in pH down. easier than looking for EDTA. EDTA might kill good bacteria too for all I know. so i just convinced myself. try adding pH down since no one complains about that here. see this. maybe helps :confused:

Citric Acid
Another crystalline organic acid that actively dissolves rust without attacking the metal is citric acid. It occurs natural in many fruits and has the added benefit of not being appreciably toxic. In fact the supersoar candies sold in stores are lace with crystals of citric acid! None the less, eating citric acid is not recommended as it might damage your tooth enamel. Like oxalic acid a fairly dilute solution can be used. When rusty parts are left overnight, the rust will be gone. Citric acid is superior to oxalic acid in that the iron salts formed are soluble where as the oxalates formed are not very soluble. Oxalic acid can leave a green deposit on steel that has been treated for rust. The citric acid forms iron citrate in solution which is reduced in direct sunlight to a colorless compound. For this reason clothing with rust stains can be treated with salt mixed with fresh squeezed lemon juice and left to dry in the sun. The rust stain will first turn green forming ferric citrate but then the UV rays from the sun cause the citric acid to reduce the iron to ferrous citrate which is white. There still is a crusty solid left behind so washing with the laundry is necessary. I also use
citric acid as a shower cleaner as well. It removes soap scum from shower doors and walls and clears hard water deposits that clog shower heads.


hopefully some expert chimes in

Edit: Molasses might do something with iron too.
Nice I'm already using citric acid for the ph down. I tried a sediment filter before I used ro and it didn't drop the ppm at all but it might have not been a small enough micron. Think I'm just going to do a couple plants with straight tap, a couple mix and couple straight ro and compare.
 
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