outwest
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As someone who is not much of a DIYer, I'll stick with my purchased solution. It was affordable and it works well.
outwest
outwest
what i have gathered is that peat will not lose it's capacity to remove the alkalinity, the sand is at the bottom just to remove some of the particulates from the peat ... only time will tell along with ph and ppm checks after each batch if i see ppm rise from what it currently comes out at then i know the filter media might need changing ..
As someone who is not much of a DIYer, I'll stick with my purchased solution. It was affordable and it works well.
outwest
homemade filters are the very best imho ... it only take 6 feet of sand dirt and carbon to filter the worst water into drinking quality ... in my current case i can't even consider using an ro unit it would dry my well up and not to mention ro strips vital minerals from the water that then need to be replaced for healthy growth... being stuck on using ro is a bandaid for poor growing skills .. a formula can be figured out no matter how poor well water is ..
my current well water comes out at 400ppm at 9.1 ph .. alkalinity is 330ppm it is so buffered that it took 1 qt of ph down to bring the ph within a reasonable range in 50 gl .. this water simply could not be used for growing any crop ... so i built a filter using a 50gl drum filled with peat moss and sand ... i coiled a soaker hose at the top of the media and then used standard flood and drain fittings in the bottom of the drum as my filtered out .. water comes out at 50ppm and now at 6.5ph with a the buffering removed from the high alkalinity upon adding nutrients the water finds it's home at 5.8 ph .. plants love it and i waste 0 water ..
Honestly my opinion is that beginners are better off using RO, simply from the standpoint that building from the ground up will help you to understand what EXACTLY it is the plant needs and why.
For the faint of heart or the large scale grower, there is no question that filtering is the way to go.
Because of the purity of RO water, it should be thought of more as a tool than a commodity. There are things you can accomplish with 0ppm water that just aren't possible when you've got some stuff left in there and you don't categorically know what exactly it is.
Using RO can also offer an avenue to increased standardization so that we can all share information better, and that is something to think about. There's a ton to think about honestly.
I would like to see some pictures of your home made water filter if at all possible. It would make for a great youtube video!homemade filters are the very best imho ... it only take 6 feet of sand dirt and carbon to filter the worst water into drinking quality ... in my current case i can't even consider using an ro unit it would dry my well up and not to mention ro strips vital minerals from the water that then need to be replaced for healthy growth... being stuck on using ro is a bandaid for poor growing skills .. a formula can be figured out no matter how poor well water is ..
my current well water comes out at 400ppm at 9.1 ph .. alkalinity is 330ppm it is so buffered that it took 1 qt of ph down to bring the ph within a reasonable range in 50 gl .. this water simply could not be used for growing any crop ... so i built a filter using a 50gl drum filled with peat moss and sand ... i coiled a soaker hose at the top of the media and then used standard flood and drain fittings in the bottom of the drum as my filtered out .. water comes out at 50ppm and now at 6.5ph with a the buffering removed from the high alkalinity upon adding nutrients the water finds it's home at 5.8 ph .. plants love it and i waste 0 water ..
Great thread. This has me re thinking things, i've gone so fare with my Ro as to stay away from post carbon filtration because i thought carbon can effect certain nutes. particularly a new carbon filter. Guess that's wrong. Here is a question that may be slightly off topic, but my DE-humidifyier is constantly full, it has a ppm of about 16, it should be distilled correct? So is there an ion issue with it? could i filter that and dump it back in the rez?