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Sorry for the quickfire questions, but have searched the grow faq and forum but no joy.

What's the story with using distilled/purified water instead of tap water and leaving it 24 hours? I'm in a hurry to get things going and don't want to wait for my shit quality water to warm up or dechlorinate.

When I stuck the cF meter in there it gets no reading and a pH of 5.5. Is this stuff okay to add nutes to? or is it too pure? or is this good stuff?! (EDIT: I know the cF can't be read because its too pure, but when I add in nutes it should be okay, no? This is only until I can afford a RO machine or better than tap water, which is hard London water at 0.6 EC before I start)

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Mini bump....someone really clueful just say 'yes FF, go ahead and use 2 x 5l of distilled water for your tank - it's fine' or 'no dude, distilled water is a nightmare because you can't ever get a proper pH reading because of the low ions (or whatever)'

[Midnightgardener]

yes u can use it but you have to raise your ph after adding your nutes because your ph is 5.5 without nutes(nutes lower ph and raise ec)
good luck
MG

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Cheers - don't have any pH up....but put in 40ml Rhizotonic to my 10l tank and the pH went from 5.5 to 9.9! I do have some pH down here so going to bring it down to 5.8 and turn the system on.... \o/

[LTLU]

sorry not much help here but i have always been led to believe that distilled water will have a ph of 7, the water that comes from my de-humidifier is always a ph of 7, so have to ask what your source is for distilled water as you may be getting something else.. sorry cant be more help, but if you goodle distilled water ph you will find more or less everyone is saying its a ph of 7, just thought i would let ya know.

[FastForward]

Originally Posted by LTLU

sorry not much help here but i have always been led to believe that distilled water will have a ph of 7, the water that comes from my de-humidifier is always a ph of 7, so have to ask what your source is for distilled water as you may be getting something else.. sorry cant be more help, but if you goodle distilled water ph you will find more or less everyone is saying its a ph of 7, just thought i would let ya know.

It's definitely proper distilled water - from a chemist @ £3/5 litre, although I've found an aquarium place that will do £4/25 litres and will be moving over to that in the next day or so until i can afford an RO machine.

Also, after reading around at GH and a few other places that they do formulate their nutes for 0 EC, so people must use distilled water with it - I just gotta get used to it

[FastForward]

Alrighty...the answer is: rhizotonic + airstone in hydro tank = rising pH. Got this from a very good thread over at icmag forums. I don't want to take the rhizo out, and I can't use H2O2....is it worth taking the airstone out? Or just sod it and change the levels twice a day??

[chuckz]

Forget the distilled shit. Don't worry about the EC 0 readings, soon as you add nutes, the conductivity will rise.

However, EC 0, and Ph 5.5 is very curious, especially for distilled water. I suspect it is ionised and otherwise treated as well, though i don't know why that would make any difference. I'd rather start with tap water (which I have never had a problem with, without filters or leaving it overnight). Chlorine and flouride are not problems for plants, and can actually be beneficial. Some people add small amounts of bleach (hydrogen peroxide) to the tank to aid oxygen takeup at the roots and keep some disease in check.

The only concern about tap water is making sure you account for the initial EC when adding your nutes and taking final readings.

If things get too clinical, then all forms of pest and disease become much bigger issues. The cleaner you try to keep things, the cleaner you will HAVE TO keep things (but that is not an excuse to be a slob).

[chuckz]

Originally Posted by FastForward

Alrighty...the answer is: rhizotonic + airstone in hydro tank = rising pH. Got this from a very good thread over at icmag forums. I don't want to take the rhizo out, and I can't use H2O2....is it worth taking the airstone out? Or just sod it and change the levels twice a day??

Thats a handy piece of info!

Why are you using rhizo constantly? Just use it when you have stressed the plants, changed routine, or you spot something amiss. Treat it more like an antibiotic. If you use it all the time then it will not have the right effect when it is really needed.

[fi_di_bot]

pay attentiont the air that come out from the airstone give you a false ph value. you must take a sample of the solution or turn off the airstone for reading the right value.