Testing tap EC for soil

[CBDictonary]

So I live in an unusual place off the grid..

Just tested the EC of my tap water and it’s reading 0

It could be a broken Essentials EC pen..

Or very possibly the EC of the water here is 0.

About to start another grow in Biobizz light mix with Biobizz nutes, and was curious how soft the water is here, as last run I had what I diagnosed as some pretty chronic cal mag issues.
I guess an EC of 0 might confirm very soft water ?

What’s the best way to test if the pen is faulty - add some cal mag to some water and check if the reading changes ? Or can I use Epsom salts to change it perhaps ?

If it is an EC of 0 should I be adding cal mag from the start, before the nutes, to get the EC up to 0.8 - 1.2 ?

DinaFem have an interesting article on their site about EC values and soil grows, which got me thinking about this.

Thanks for the help!

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

reverse osmosis de ionized and something else should be 0....but out the tap i imagine there should be a lil of something to give a reading.
got recalibration fluids ?

 

[CBDictonary]

No recalibration fluids unfortunately.

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

im not well up on anything but the basics of ec/ppm/tds but yes allways calmag first about 300ppm or so ish dunno what that is in ec
let me throw out some names of cococo/dwc watery growers see hows about @Mañ'O'Green @HighnDry @wetwood cant remember any idea folks what CBD is talking about cause i dont know what im talking about
cheers have a agoodun
good luck n keep er lit

 

[CBDictonary]

So I have tested using a little Epsom salts and the meter’s definitely reading.. spoon of salts in a mug sent the reading sky high and I had to dilute some to get a reading down to 7.8

So I’m thinking perhaps the water could be EC 0
I basically live on the side of a glacier, so perhaps it’s not impossible.

How do soil growers deal with this from seed? Add calmag from the offset? Or wait to see a deficiency?

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

I would not trust that tool. If your EC pen was working you want ~50PPM of cal-mag or 0.1 EC on the Hanna Scale before you start adding nutrients. Buy a good quality EC probe and take care of it. Here is a useful chart:

 

[CBDictonary]

It’s this probe - https://www.londongrow.com/essentials-ec-meter.html

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

thats a pretty decent pen....but ph,ec,ppm.tds pens dont need much of a knock to knock them off.no pen can be trusted without being calibrated first and regular.
some ph pens have ph 4/7 testing fluids,stotage and cleaning solutions.so can be out as much again on fluids as the pen itself.
my first ph pen was £6 and i spent £30 on fluids.pen wernt worth a shite so went and forked out £70 for a pen that works.just so happens i may test my feeds ph but i never adjust.
short answer nobody knows untill its calibrated.its a one push button to calibrate,whats the destructions say ?

 

[AutoWonders]

I basically live on the side of a glacier, so perhaps it’s not impossible

Icelandic bottled water has 62 ppm, so maybe it is super clean glacial water.

 

[CBDictonary]

It says out the box new it is calibrated.

But it does say about using the correct calibration fluid.. which I don’t have, and the shop annoyingly didn’t suggest it would be necessary, even when I asked if there was anything else I might need with this.

I actually live more remote than Iceland.

So I can’t just jump out to get some calibration fluid unfortunately.