What type of water would you use and how?

[Olde School Player]

Thank you for comment. Once I was ready to buy a RO system but at that time it wasnt look like efficient for me because of a couple of reasons.
First I read that such systems wasting too much water (now I see some desktop versions too which is look like there is no waste output). The second one was the price of products and cost of filter replacements. I'll definitely check that option again.

Brita products remove sediment & some particulates that cause smells, like sulfur. They may claim to remove lead (?). But they are not really efficient at removing dissolved particles and other serious contaminants. Plus they are slooooooooow. RO is definitely the way to go longer term.
Rain water collection can be problematic, too. I've known people with whole house cisterns who sickened the whole family with Giardia, or was it cryptosporidium... either makes you very ill and you will be nicknamed Sir Poopsalot if you get it.
Yes, RO systems CAN generate as much as 4X waste water to each unit of purified filtered water, which is problematic if you are in an arid region where water use is closely guarded. But there is a simple solution to improve that waste ratio. Install a simple quarter-turn ball valve shutoff on the waste water drain. Your system should come with one, sometimes called a flow restrictor which can clog, other times - and a better option - as a shutoff ball valve feature for operating. If not, they are cheap at any hardware supply.
Once your system is running, measure filtered water output in one container to waste water in another container. Slowly close the shutoff a little at a time and measure output over 15 minutes or more. When the waste water and clean water are running at the same gallons per hour rate, you are efficient. Recheck this every month or so and recalibrate as needed. As long as you keep the ratio of waste water to clean water at 1 to 1, your RO filter should last many months. Replacement filters are available on Amazon for around $15 to $20.
Note that the differences in system costs are the number of filter stages. Don't get a single stage RO-only, you need a cheaper two stage system with a particulate prefilter and a low volume (50gph) RO filter. The gallons per hour rating of various systems are dictated by the RO filter capacity. Start with a less expensive lower volume system, like 40-50 GPH. Over time, your filter efficiency will diminish and when it's too slow / time to replace, order a larger capacity 100 GPH or greater RO filter as a replacement. Price differences are not huge between low & higher volume RO filters.
Be aware, an "X" gallon per hour system is never going to meet that number; you'll get 50% less or worse. Going from memory, my 100 gallon per day system when new filters about 2 GP Hour or less. As it ages, today it's running at 0.7 GPH after nearly a year of use running 2+ gallons per day.
Note that RO filters take it all out, including needed minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, etc.
You need to replace those minerals. And a silicate supplement will do great things to your plant's health, stress tolerance, bloom quantity and density, etc.
Start with a silicate supplement such as General Hydroponics Armor Si, and add 2mL per gallon to your RO filtered water. Then add 4mL per gallon of Cal Mag supplement, then your nutrients. After mixing, check and balance pH and you're ready to feed your plants.
One side note of caution. The minerals removed from your water by your RO filter help buffer pH of your water. The silicate & cal mag supplements help restore this, but you may encounter pH fluctuations from time to time. Mix your nutes then check & adjust pH before applying.
Your plants will thank you!!!
Hope this helps, besta luck to ya!

 

[Olde School Player]

If you use rain water from a non polluted environment all is good , I use fish pond water , .

Ooooohhhh, REALLY??? Man, fish fornicate in that! If you find yourself getting hungry after smoking product watered with fishicate water, it could be a sign that you have consumed ...
Do you know what else they do in that water???
Never mind, I'm going to my room now. Forget I said anything.

 

[KingRatt]

Hello. I’ve always used bottled spring water until now. I want to try another source. I read some articles about this but Im lost in the views a little bit. I had PH and EC meters. Im potting my plants to the soil and using liquid fertilizers (Canna Terra Series). I would like to here your opinions and experiences for my system.


Firstly I wonder what would you think about using rain water? Winter is coming soon and I wonder how safe to use it? I m living in a pretty huge city. So I ve no idea about the rain water quality. But I can collect it it daily base. It may be pretty sustainable for me. I usually growing a couple of plants at once.

Of course other source is tap. I ve pitcher filtering system that I can use. You may heard Brita products.
A quote for those who haven’t use the product.


What are your experiences about those sources? Which one would you go and how would you use? As an option I may filter rain water too. I dont care about the cost of filtering since I ve pretty cheap source for it.

I use tap water that i treat with a dechlorinator called Jungle Pond Start. It removes chlorine and chloramines from tap water to keep it safe for beneficials ie. fungi/bacteria and other microbial life, it uses about 5drops per gallon so lasts a long time. I adjust ph as necessary as my citys water runs pretty high. Always ph after adding the nutrients so youre not chasing the ph. Hope this helps.