New Grower Water Quality Discussion.

[BassNDrum]

Mmmmm maybe I should stop bubbling mine.

im not trying to worry anyone, if its working for you then dont panic!

 

[Alwaysautos]

Hey alwaysautos, Have you tested your ph after letting it stand for 24hrs? you might find it is lower after 24hrs as dissolved gasses with bump up the ph, which is why you shouldent bubble the water as this will dissolve gasses into the water further raising pH.

i know what your thinking 'well ive heard of loads of people aerating their water before watering plants to get oxygen to the roots..' yes they do, and thats fine if the water theyre aerating has a low KH (carbonate hardness) as it will not raise ph.

Hey BassNDrum, thanks man! Yeah the pH does drop a few points after I leave it to stand, and thats good info about bubbling so thanks! I´m gonna jump in the car tomorrow and try and find a source of RO water. I´ve been thinking for a while that water could be an area to improve in my growing, I recently discovered a large portion of my tap water is desalinated sea water so I imagine the level of salts in the water must be high.

 

[Duckster]

Well go with Bio Bizz Light Mix soil and Bio Bizz Organic nutes, so from what i can see is a good soil and nute combination with nothing nasty going in it.

Is working good yeah but somethings can always work better, so gonna leave some water out try unfiltered as i think it may benfit plants more and chlorine if thats what the clourides are dont seem to high.

The chloride reading that they give you is always a bit fuzzy. This is because chlorine is so unstable. The tap in the line after the treatment plant could read as high as 4-5 mg/l, but the poor sod down near the end of the line could have a residual of 0. So any pathogens forming in the line at his end are untreated.

And a bit of a primer

Chlorine is the disinfectantmost commonly used in the treatment of water and wastewater in the world. Treatment typically entails dosing water with chlorine gas (Cl2), liquid sodiumhypochlorite solution (NaClO), or solid calcium hypochlorite (Ca(ClO)2). These compounds form hypochlorous acid (HOCl), or “free chlorine”, in water. Chlorine compounds are strong oxidizers, persist in water, and provide residual disinfection to prevent recontamination throughout the distribution system,making them useful in both primary and secondary disinfection processes. Each of these compounds has its own drawbacks. Chlorine gas is deadly, a leaky tank can kill. Sodium hypochlorite solutions are very unstable and break down quickly especially in the higher concentrations i.e. todays 50% solution is next weeks 30% solution. Most plants will use a 10-15% solution which is fairly stable.The stuff that you use in your laundry is around 3-5%. The solids or powders are ok for pools and spas but not economically feasible for the treatment of large amounts of water. All chlorine compounds have a couple of other drawbacks. Exposure to sunlight and air, changes in pH and temperature cause the free chlorine to change and/or dissipate rapidly. Hence the fact that we can put a bucket out and 24 hours later the free chlorine is gone. Free chlorine will react with natural organic materials in the water to create disinfection byproducts. Two by-products of free-chlorine disinfection, trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids(HAAs), have been determined to be carcinogenic with high exposure and have been identified for regulation.

This lead to the introduction of chloramine as a disinfectant in water treatment plants. Some plants use chloramine as both the primary and secondary treatment. Some will use chlorine as the primary disinfectant of the water and use chloramine as the disinfectant of the water system (mains, pipes, etc.) Some plants with surface water sources will alternate back and forth between chlorine and chloramine several times during the year depending on the time of the year and the incoming water quality. The process starts the same way, with the addition of chlorine as a gas or in a liquid solution. At some point ammonia is added to the mix. The chlorine and ammonia bond to form chloramine which is very stable. It has along term residual that makes it very good as a secondary disinfectant. This process also produces about 1/3 the THMs as the standard chlorine process. Chloramine also has its own set of disinfection by-products. Chloramines and the by-products lead to increased oxidation and metal leaching in the lines. Metal leaching means the concentrations of lead, copper, etc. will go up. Maybe not where it is being measured by the utility but it will go up at your tap. Besides chloramine is so hard to get rid of. If you set out a bucket with chloramined water, by the time the chloramine had boiled off, there would be some pretty nasty stuff living in that water. It will kill fish, shellfish, frogs, and other critters that live in the water. I you have dialysis, the water in the machine has to be chloramine free.

I said all of that to say this. Chloramines cannot be removed by the standard carbon filter. I have seen adds that say they have a specially formulated filter that will remove chloramine but I’ve never tried one and they are not cheap. A standard RO home unit would have a very difficult time of removing chloramine. The membrane exposure time would be too long to really produce anything. The best way to remove chloramine is with chemicals. You can find these at your local aquarium shop. I think these work by breaking the bond between the chlorine and ammonia.Then you let the two compounds dissipate naturally. Just my 2-3 cents worth.

 

[Dr Who]

There is an important difference between chlorine and chloride

Chlorine (Cl2) is a highly toxic gas and strong oxidant, its fairly commonly used for disinfecting public water supplies. Water fresh from the tap may have an excess of chlorine, which will out gas if left to stand exposed to air. Any analysis of chlorine would usually be reported as Total Residual Oxidant (TRO), which is not reported in the original posters analytical report. I believe it may harm RO filters, so is usually removed by activated carbon before RO filtration.

Chloride (Cl-) is an ion, which can result from the reduction of chlorine, although the source of the vast majority of the chloride in a natural water will be from mineral dissolution. It won't cause any harm to your plants, provided it's not so concentrated that they get too salty (there is a lot of sodium chloride in seawater).

It is my (limited) understanding that many water filters (e.g. the Brita ones) are primarily aimed at reducing water hardness, and that they tend to do this by exchanging Ca/Mg for H+ (acidity). This might explain why the filtered water is slightly lower pH. Looking at the water chemistry of the original post I would guess that the water is softish (0.6 mM is about 60 mg/l CaCO3, but there are so many different units for hardness it just gets silly). Personally I wouldn't see any point in reducing the hardness if it was likely that I would need to add Ca/Mg supplements during the grow (although there might be other reasons for RO treatment).

The "chemistry" of the water from the original post could be "compared" to what others might be using by converting the reported conductivity into a "ppm" value based on calibration data for the type of conductivity type "ppm" meters that seem fairly common. You might find a calibration on the web, the vast majority of meters are calibrated against NaCl, although CaCl2 is also used sometimes.

 

[Spanglish]

Thanks Dr, I an leaning towards using tap water without the filter for future feedings, looks like there is no chlorine levels in those test results then, so will be leaving a bowl full and sat out before using it to be safe, until I get a chance to pick up some distilled or ro water from the gas station. Alot of great info here, great responses people.

 

[Bilbo]

Chloramine just sucks and it's unlucky if you live in an area that uses it, I wouldn't let that shit near my grow.

Chlorine isn't as evil as people seem to think, it mostly disappears (80%+) between the tap and your container when you fill one and the rest you can let evaporate over 12 to 24 hours by leaving the container open.

After a lot of research, a few calculations and the fact that it made bugger all difference to my plants either way I came to the conclusion that it's no problem using it straight from the tap in my area as it gives the plants roughly the amount of chlorine they need without overdosing them.

 

[Spanglish]

Here is some interesting info on the results of a water analylsis, is based on the affects in fish life but gives you a basic idea of how each compound affects the water.

http://fisheries.tamu.edu/files/2013/09/Understanding-Your-Fish-Pond-Water-Analysis-Report.pdf

http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/extension/Classroom/pdffiles/0902a.pdf

also a tool that seems to support a few US states, where you can enter your data and get a explanation of what it means.

https://erams.com/wqtool/


Some more info on how water treatments work and whats in your water

http://waterquality.cce.cornell.edu/treatment.htm

And a agricultural analysis explanation

https://www.daff.qld.gov.au/plants/...terpretation-of-water-analysis-for-irrigation

 

[pop22]

Hey Pop ... got a link for the portable RO filter you use ?

I got mine on ebay, there are lots of them there. This is the same as mine:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PORTABLE-RE...all_Kitchen_Appliances_US&hash=item20b41ea276

 

[Chester]

Thanks Pop ... my cost for RO is very reasonable ($.25/gal) but I think picking up 6 gals of water a couple times a week is the most 'suspicious' thing I do ...

 

[SMOOTHseven]

my local water department websit states that it is a RO facility with 3.5-4 mg/l chlorine and .4mg/l of fluoride with a hardess of 60-82 mg/l
will this be ok for my plants