Water: The Most Essential Compound

Chanelno1

Member
S
What is distilled water?
Distilled water is also called steam-distilled water. Distilled water is water which has been heated to the boiling point so that impurities are separated from the water, which becomes vapor or steam at 212 degrees farenheit(100C.). Steam is then cooled and condensed back into pure liquid form. The impurities remain as residue in the steam kettle(to be periodically removed). This distillation system removes waterborne biological contaminants such as bacteria, parasites and viruses, organic and inorganic chemicals, heavy metals, volatile gasses, cysts, and other contaminants. Pure water contains no solids, minerals, or trace elements. It is clean, natural, and healthy. Steam distilled water is the standard by which all other waters are measured.:leaf:
As a first time grower it's all about the pH balance in the water as I am not using tap water but bottled water and testing the pH and then adding a dash of lemon-would this be right-my pH is 6.8?
 

Jroey

Member
I mean really tho.. if ur not trying to win a canabis cup does it really matter?? Mix some nutes grow some tree and let's not act like the plant itself does t wanna live.. or am I trippin? Is it not called "weed" because it really wants to grow like a weed anywhere anyway?? Is my plant gonna Kiel over if I give some water from my hose?? I have zero growing experience I'm on my first 6 as we speak my ph is good my ppm Is high but does it really matter during ur learning process?? Or Is it more fine tuning for better yield and quality moving forward?? Please let me kno
 

TankHankerous

Well-Known Member
I just want to chime in and say that I'm on my 3rd grow. The first 2 I used Happy frog/ocean forest soil with bottled nutes... I came to harvest both times but these mugs looked scary, spooky, and sickly. Anyway I'm onmy 3rd grow this time with happy frog/ ocean forest and this time i used earthworm castings, I added more perlite and then I also top dressed with dr earth ferts. I will say this, my plant are so gosh darn happy it makes me happy. I love the idea of feeding the soil and it takes what it needs
 

Week4@inCharge

Well-Known Member
Anyone know how much is to much or to low of Copper? I know the MCL for human consumption is 1.3, what's ii for cannabis, and what's to little for cannabis? I have no idea what that 1.3 stands for, 1.3 ppm? My local water is .14 for Copper.
 

Rico2016

Active Member
hello i use tap water my water comes out with a ppm of 25...... i never have trouble its good stuff. but maybe you could clear this up for me . i was told to never use distilled or r\o water because it is lacking in buffers and other vital minerals that promote healthy growth... do you know if this is true. ive heard a lot of ppl talkin bout it. than there is all the addatives ppl use makes me wonder if they just used good ol tap water, would they need all those addatives??? i dnt use any and havnt for a long long time with no ill effects, i think its kinda like a placebo, you think its better because it tells you that on the bottle
Wow tap water with PPPM of 25 is pretty darn impressive i wish mine was that low.
 

Blue_Focus

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.
For folks with high blood pressure and have a softener. They should use Potassium Chloride instead of salt.
 

Blue_Focus

Well-Known Member
What is distilled water?
Distilled water is also called steam-distilled water. Distilled water is water which has been heated to the boiling point so that impurities are separated from the water, which becomes vapor or steam at 212 degrees farenheit(100C.). Steam is then cooled and condensed back into pure liquid form. The impurities remain as residue in the steam kettle(to be periodically removed). This distillation system removes waterborne biological contaminants such as bacteria, parasites and viruses, organic and inorganic chemicals, heavy metals, volatile gasses, cysts, and other contaminants. Pure water contains no solids, minerals, or trace elements. It is clean, natural, and healthy. Steam distilled water is the standard by which all other waters are measured.:leaf:
Love hearing about water. :D

I've worked in a company for over 20 years making water better.

Where I retired from they have a Steam Vapor Compression Destiller. It boils water at 249⁰ F. It produced around 4 GPM of 0 TDS water.

It was one of my jobs there to keep it in tip top running condition.
 

tyler.durden

Well-Known Member
I never even though about water before recently moving. I lived in Chicago most of my life, and grew weed there. I started with RDWC and used bennies, so I just let my water sit for a day before adding them to a new rez. Our water was great quality, and only seemed to use chlorine to purify it. I later moved on to flood & drain and went sterile, so it was even less of an issue. I recently bought a house and moved just over the border into Indiana, and this water sucks for plants. It actively tries to kill every plant I use it on, no shit. I believe it has high levels of pythium and chloramines. The choramine level isn't high enough to kill the pythium, but it is high enough to kill most of my bennies, so the pythium wins if straight from the tap. I've been using RO water for my aero cloner and veg units with bennies, no problems there. But for flower, I fill three 27 gallon rezes, and that's a lot of RO water to produce. So, I started using API's Tap Water conditioner in the flower rezes. It is awesome. It is intended for fish in aquariums but many people use it for their plants. It neutralizes chlorine, heavy metals, AND chlorimines! It is also super cheap. They make tap water conditioners for plants with the same active ingredient, but since it is marketed toward weed growers, it is many times more expensive. Now I just fill the rezes, dump in a little API, then add my bennies. With nothing to kill them, my bennies completely outcompete any pythium in the water and my roots are super white again. Water really does matter, who knew?
 
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