Water: The Most Essential Compound

Hey there guyz and galz.....have a noob question....is it ok for you to use Poland spring water ??? Ive used it on my last micro grow and the one before that which was a total screw-up....but for some reason i think it works great...never had t adjust the ph on it....just not sure if what to add cal/mag etc...ive heard natural spring water usually has alot of minerals it might be a lil pricey depending on the amount of plants ..but i just want a concrete answer..is POLAND SPRING GOOD TO GROW??
 
Hello!?!?!? Anybody home?!?!?....anybody with some knowledge bout this...pleae shed some light...maybe somebodys used it before ??? Poland spring natural spring water ???? Is it any good???
 

uksecretsensi

Well-Known Member
Water is water right? Wrong. I see a lot of growers that have all this knowledge about nutrients and photoperiods but know very little about the water they use and that not all water is created equal and some water isn't very well suited for growing at all. I decided to do this thread to help educate growers about the water they use and why it's important to understand "The most essential compound".


What is "Hard Water"?

Perhaps you have on occassion noticed mineral deposits on your cooking dishes, or rings of insoluble soap scum in your bathtub. These are not signs of poor housekeeping, but are rather signs of hard water from the municipal water supply. Hard water is water that contains cations with a charge of +2, especially Ca2+ and Mg2+. These ions do not pose any health threat, but they can engage in reactions that leave insoluble mineral deposits. These deposits can make hard water unsuitable for many uses, and so a variety of means have been developed to "soften" hard water; i.e.,remove the calcium and magnesium ions.
Problems with Hard Water

Mineral deposits are formed by ionic reactions resulting in the formation of an insoluble precipitate. For example, when hard water is heated, Ca2+ ions react with bicarbonate (HCO3-) ions to form insoluble calcium carbonate (CaCO3), as shown in Equation 1.

(1)


This precipitate, known as scale, coats the vessels in which the water is heated, producing the mineral deposits on your cooking dishes. In small quantities, these deposits are not harmful, but they may be frustrating to try to clean. As these deposits build up, however, they reduce the efficiency of heat transfer, so food may not cook as evenly or quickly in pans with large scale deposits. More serious is the situation in which industrial-sized water boilers become coated with scale: the cost in heat-transfer efficiency can have a dramatic effect on your power bill! Furthermore, scale can accumulate on the inside of appliances, such as dishwashers, and pipes. As scale builds up, water flow is impeded, and hence appliance parts and pipes must be replaced more often than if Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions were not present in the water.
Some Strategies to "Soften" Hard Water

For large-scale municipal operations, a process known as the "lime-soda process" is used to remove Ca2+ and Mg2+ from the water supply. Ion-exchange reactions, similar to those you performed in this experiment, which result in the formation of an insoluble precipitate, are the basis of this process. The water is treated with a combination of slaked lime, Ca(OH)2, and soda ash, Na2CO3. Calcium precipitates as CaCO3, and magnesium precipitates as Mg(OH)2. These solids can be collected, thus removing the scale-forming cations from the water supply.
To see this process in more detail, let us consider the reaction for the precipitation of Mg(OH)2. Consultation of the solubility guidelines in the experiment reveals that the Ca(OH)2 of slaked lime is moderately soluble in water. Hence, it can dissociate in water to give one Ca2+ ion and two OH- ions for each unit of Ca(OH)2 that dissolves. The OH- ions react with Mg2+ ions in the water to form the insoluble precipitate. The Ca2+ ions are unaffected by this reaction, and so we do not include them in the net ionic reaction (Equation 2). They are removed by the separate reaction with CO32- ions from the soda ash.

(2)


Household water softeners typically use a different process, known as ion exchange. Ion-exchange devices consist of a bed of plastic (polymer) beads covalently bound to anion groups, such as -COO-. The negative charge of these anions is balanced by Na+ cations attached to them. When water containing Ca2+ and Mg2+ is passed through the ion exchanger, the Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions are more attracted to the anion groups than the Na+ ions. Hence, they replace the Na+ ions on the beads, and so the Na+ ions (which do not form scale) go into the water in their place.
Figure 1

When hard tapwater passes through the ion exchanger (left), the calcium ions from the tapwater replace the sodium ions in the ion exchanger. The softened water, containing sodium ions in place of calcium ions, can be collected for household use.

Unfortunately, many people with high blood pressure or other health problems must restrict their intake of sodium. Because water softened by this type of ion exchange contains many sodium ions, people with limited sodium intakes should avoid drinking water that has been softened this way. Several new techniques for softening water without introducing sodium ions are beginning to appear on the market.
Or use hardwater nutes e.g. Dutch pro a+b for hardwater. Works fine for me.
 

uksecretsensi

Well-Known Member
Hey there guyz and galz.....have a noob question....is it ok for you to use Poland spring water ??? Ive used it on my last micro grow and the one before that which was a total screw-up....but for some reason i think it works great...never had t adjust the ph on it....just not sure if what to add cal/mag etc...ive heard natural spring water usually has alot of minerals it might be a lil pricey depending on the amount of plants ..but i just want a concrete answer..is POLAND SPRING GOOD TO GROW??
Iv never used it personally but have heard great things about it. Hope this helps.
 
Re: "Polish Spring Water"

If the guy lives in Poland next to a spring it's probably best choice. If it's in bottles it's probably no better than tapwater and sometimes worse...but always, more expensive.
 

uksecretsensi

Well-Known Member
Re: "Polish Spring Water"

If the guy lives in Poland next to a spring it's probably best choice. If it's in bottles it's probably no better than tapwater and sometimes worse...but always, more expensive.
Yes I agree with bob. I was under the assumption he lived next to a polish spring. There r many polish where I live in the UK. Most of them who I know grow weed. They r always going on about spring water in Poland but I guess there are more countries than Poland with freshwater springs.
 
Sorry for not being more clear on my question guys ....i live in new York city...and i meant Poland spring as in the bottled. water they sell around these parts ....sorry ....i wish i was in Poland
 
Seems like nobody wants to play with me.....j/k..... how bout zero water...have u ..guys had any experince with it...im tlking about that water filtration gallon that looks like brita ....but better supposedly
 

mrcourios

Member
Seems like nobody wants to play with me.....j/k..... how bout zero water...have u ..guys had any experince with it...im tlking about that water filtration gallon that looks like brita ....but better supposedly
Get yourself a R/O unit,this company is highly rated and they run specials quite often. I got a 90 gpd refurb unit for $117 shipped,no more lugging water home for me.

http://spectrapure.com/index.htm
 
Sorry bud R/O system is outta the question...for now.... im just tryin to get this crop off the ground so i can later invest much bigger and better..i know u get what u pay for. ..and sorry for nitpicking buuut i just need an economical way to start up and get some good water..and yes i know buying gallons of water from the supermarket every other day is really not that cheap but its easier for me cuz i basically work for tips {no im not a stripper}..and it doesnt seem to hurt me as much spending 3-4 bucks a week on water
 
What im trying to say is this : im in NY tap water is shitty high ph and such..with poland spring water my plants seemd to love it buuuut i saw somewhere that its very soft water bout 20ppm ...anybody...just anybody give me some sort of recipe for some good water in NY...btw should be getting a tds / ppm meter soon ...and the ph for poland spring looks on point when i check it
 
Man very nice post. Water is actually more complicated than it seems and i see a lot of growers lose plants that are capable of a lot more than they got! Props and a bookmark man.
 

Sir.Ganga

New Member
Hey doc...one of the best reads on this site for sure! Very informitive and not bias one way or the other. Clear and conscise, good on ya!

I have a different opinion on R/O. I was shown what was in my tap water over 20yrs ago and was shown the proper application of using an r/o system.

Firts of all what I learnt is you plants do not care if your water has 200,300,400 ppms to start its what in that 200,300 or 400ppm that should warrant an r/o system.

Generlly in western Canada's cities you have mainly minerals like calcium, iron, flouride and of course chlorine (chlorimine) that are in your taps. I was shown that most of these are at a size that plants can not use or uptake and do not affect the general growth of the plants until they are let build up in your medium.

Now Im not saying that r/o should not be used but unless you have a legitimate reason there is no real benifet. Well water, dugouts, farms or other water sources that have other elements or contaminants may require a system and should be used for everything including cooking drinking cleaning and of course growing.

My tap water runs at 300-350ppm year round, this number is now my new point of zero, if your looking for a certain ppm, say 1000ppm then my set point for my ppm is 1350.

Basically using an r/o will effectively drop your ppm to zero but if you really do not have too is there a real benifet and is it something else to take care of.

This..of course is my opinion, which I have based on multiple tests on the subject and unless I move to a farm of smaller town I will not use one.
_________________________
 

Brandawg92

Active Member
Wow fifty pages, and I'm gonna be the first to say this?

Well Doc, you do know about water purification. But the problem is that cannabis needs more than we can give it. Count your hydro nutes, if theyre any good ther should b 15 nutrients.

Cannabis needs i think somewhere between 21 and 25 some including:
aluminum
chlorine
silicone
Iodine
vanadium

Anyways, most of these are contaminants in tap water. So, since i know no other way to supply these i use tap water once in a while, but usually just distilled.

Any thoughts?
 

bubbles6302

Well-Known Member
Just finished reading this and i must say very imformative im impressed a pat on the back for all the people that supplied information .

I have a r/o unit that does 190lpd
http://www.hydrogarden.com/Ko-Bespoke/stockdetails.asp?product=1/BY CATEGORY AND SUB/ENVIRONMENTAL/REVERSE OSMOSIS/0/09-455-015.htm
When i bought it i never knew how they worked and when i got it fitted and ran water through it to water my ladies with i was shocked at the speed of the water through the unit it would of took a few hours just to fill up 1 of my 5 litre bottles . Just wondering are all R/O units the same? Also do i really have to buy a water storage vessel to collect the water from te R/O unit? bloody thing cost me nearly £300 :cuss:
 

bubbles6302

Well-Known Member
Just finished reading this and i must say very imformative im impressed a pat on the back for all the people that supplied information .

I have a r/o unit that does 190lpd
http://www.hydrogarden.com/Ko-Bespok...09-455-015.htm
When i bought it i never knew how they worked and when i got it fitted and ran water through it to water my ladies with i was shocked at the speed of the water through the unit it would of took a few hours just to fill up 1 of my 5 litre bottles . Just wondering are all R/O units the same? Also do i really have to buy a water storage vessel to collect the water from te R/O unit? bloody thing cost me nearly £300 :cuss:
 

Brandawg92

Active Member
Wow fifty pages, and I'm gonna be the first to say this?

Well Doc, you do know about water purification. But the problem is that cannabis needs more than we can give it. Count your hydro nutes, if theyre any good ther should b 15 nutrients.

Cannabis needs i think somewhere between 21 and 25 some including:
aluminum
chlorine
silicone
Iodine
vanadium

Anyways, most of these are contaminants in tap water. So, since i know no other way to supply these i use tap water once in a while, but usually just distilled.

Any thoughts?
Still would like some input...
 

dray86man

Active Member
Still would like some input...
Municipal tap water is fine for cannabis and as you point out, contains many micronutrients.

Why anyone on a municipal water system would go to the expense of using RO or distilled water is curious to me.


Doc, thanks for citing your sources in this great thread.
 
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