Is it good to feed my girl rain water?
- Thread starter Turato
- Start date
gardenandcats
Well-Known Member
Rain water=poor mans fertilizer. Outside pot loves rain water.
The sim's Bob Newbie
Well-Known Member
We had some crazy rain last night - I leave buckets (gonna use them as 3l plant pots for my experimental outdoor clone-grow next year when I've drilled holes in them) and beakers out to collect it then bottle it up for my plants...
Just spent 3 hours filtering the crap out of it whilst bottling it up (cheapo paper coffee filters work well!) Managed to collect about 6.5 litres last night as it was pissing it down
...I'll be honest - i've not used it yet, but its going into my 2nd grow! I've been using sparkling water on them for their first week and they're doing well so far, after a couple weeks of that I'm using the rain water...
I figured as I'm in a city and they like acidic soil/water it should be ok (i'm not in London so the acid should hopefully be at an ok level, if not I can add some alkaline tap water to it - I ought to get a PH tester)
Just spent 3 hours filtering the crap out of it whilst bottling it up (cheapo paper coffee filters work well!) Managed to collect about 6.5 litres last night as it was pissing it down
...I'll be honest - i've not used it yet, but its going into my 2nd grow! I've been using sparkling water on them for their first week and they're doing well so far, after a couple weeks of that I'm using the rain water...
I figured as I'm in a city and they like acidic soil/water it should be ok (i'm not in London so the acid should hopefully be at an ok level, if not I can add some alkaline tap water to it - I ought to get a PH tester)
Mattplusness
Well-Known Member
what's the point of using rain water if you boil it afterward? Wouldn't that be the same as tap?
The sim's Bob Newbie
Well-Known Member
Nah, i didn't boil it - just strained it through a funnel and coffee filters...there was that much crap left in the filter I needed 2 of them
bobbyboy34
Well-Known Member
believe it or not the best water to use it RO water (reverse osmosis)
water has bacteria, viruses and hard metals in it, same with rain and tap water
distilled water only boils the water and collects the vapor, good for killing viruses and bacteria, but it doesn't remove metals
you don't have to go out and buy a ridiculously expensive RO system, just grab one on ebay, it will leak yes, its not top quality indeed, but it gets the water below 15ppm, i currently get 8-18 ppm
the feeding schedule on the back of your nutes (regardless of brand) is based on a ppm of nearly 0, but anything below 20 will suffice
the reason why a lot of plant problems occur is because the crap in tap/rain or distilled water is blocking nute uptake
...don't take my word for it, read a book
take a look
its in a book
Reading raaaaain booooow!
water has bacteria, viruses and hard metals in it, same with rain and tap water
distilled water only boils the water and collects the vapor, good for killing viruses and bacteria, but it doesn't remove metals
you don't have to go out and buy a ridiculously expensive RO system, just grab one on ebay, it will leak yes, its not top quality indeed, but it gets the water below 15ppm, i currently get 8-18 ppm
the feeding schedule on the back of your nutes (regardless of brand) is based on a ppm of nearly 0, but anything below 20 will suffice
the reason why a lot of plant problems occur is because the crap in tap/rain or distilled water is blocking nute uptake
...don't take my word for it, read a book
take a look
its in a book
Reading raaaaain booooow!
mr clean car wash filter from walmart. I got one for $15. the sample filter it came with was giving me 11-12ppm water. easy enough to use, just hook it to a hose. the sample filter wears out pretty fast but full size replacements are only $7. works great for me, but I stopped using it because my tap is only 58ppm, lucky.