What type of water would you use and how?

[vincenoir]

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.

A standart Brita filter works like a sieve, using carbon to lower mercury content and reduce the taste and smell of chlorine. Brita filters also contain an ion-exchange resin to filter zinc, copper, and cadmium.

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.

 

[Lil Dab]

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 a RO system but my tap water is really shity 300-400ppm. I hear about folks using rain water and love it but I have no experience. If your tap water is <200ppm I would just use that after gasing off the chorine

 

[Atulip]

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 would check your tap PPM/pH and decide from there. In a huge city, the rain water should be better than the tap I would think, don't quote me on that one lol.

Never played around with the brita stuff, but had plenty of success with RO. Switched back to tap after having the plumbing redone in my house(luckily around 50ppm now).

 

[hecno]

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

 

[vincenoir]

I use a RO system but my tap water is really shity 300-400ppm. I hear about folks using rain water and love it but I have no experience. If your tap water is <200ppm I would just use that after gasing off the chorine

thank you. I'll check it out

 

[kfigerm]

Rain Water is fine to substitute RO, but you may have a lot of unwanted larvae or spores etc in it for an indoor grow, depending on how you collect it.
Wouldn't use it indoors without treatment.
A suitable mix of RO and Tap is my way to go.

 

[BII]

I suggest use rainwater if it tests at low ppm/EC and is easy to collect and store. I wouldn't worry about sterility/plant pathogens, with the plants in nature repeated rained on and their roots essentially constantly exposed to rainwater (which will contain a sampling of microbes in the air). I'd be more concerned about insect larvae (add a Bt insecticide to collected water). But just to be careful (likely overdoing it) for human consumption sanitize the water, such as treat with H2O2, bleach, run it through a proper filter, etc.

Or use RO/DI (or just RO) water, such as invest in an entry level RO/Di filtration system, in $60 range as I recall. With all the filtering of the water, besides being 'pure,' it is relatively sterile (likely less microbes vs. tap water) , and you can drink, cook, etc. with RO water without treatment or concerns (other than make sure your diet includes enough Ca, Mg, if you normally get a lot of this from your water).

 

[vincenoir]

I suggest use rainwater if it tests at low ppm/EC and is easy to collect and store. I wouldn't worry about sterility/plant pathogens, with the plants in nature repeated rained on and their roots essentially constantly exposed to rainwater (which will contain a sampling of microbes in the air). I'd be more concerned about insect larvae (add a Bt insecticide to collected water). But just to be careful (likely overdoing it) for human consumption sanitize the water, such as treat with H2O2, bleach, run it through a proper filter, etc.

Or use RO/DI (or just RO) water, such as invest in an entry level RO/Di filtration system, in $60 range as I recall. With all the filtering of the water, besides being 'pure,' it is relatively sterile (likely less microbes vs. tap water) , and you can drink, cook, etc. with RO water without treatment or concerns (other than make sure your diet includes enough Ca, Mg, if you normally get a lot of this from your water).

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.

 

[vincenoir]

I use a RO system but my tap water is really shity 300-400ppm. I hear about folks using rain water and love it but I have no experience. If your tap water is <200ppm I would just use that after gasing off the chorine

Its interesting I was so worried about the use tap water. I just made a measurement and after those portable filtration system applied. It looks like its around 150 ppm. So do you think I can use like that after airing it? Are there additional factors that I need to look after?

 

[Lil Dab]

Its interesting I was so worried about the use tap water. I just made a measurement and after those portable filtration system applied. It looks like its around 150 ppm. So do you think I can use like that after airing it? Are there additional factors that I need to look after?

Yeah it's worth a shot that's decent starting PPM. Do you have a water report to know what's all in your water? Depending where your located you may or may not have one available. As long as there nothing harmful to the plants in it then it should be fine