Using Lake Water In Ebb And Flow Hydro System

[hotwaterkarl]

Hi there,

I currently run an 8x4 with an 80 gallon res. I currently make about 80 gallons of RO+ DI water a week from my well, which is pretty expensive in filters. I live close to a lake and could use the lake water in the summer as my base water, currently with my RO+ DI water I use CalMag and A&B and Hydroguard.

The lake water has a EC of 0.2-0.4 typical, so I probably wouldn't need to add anything other than my nutrients, which in this next cycle will be MegaCrop.

My question I guess is has anyone here ever used lake water in hydro like this before? I was wondering if I could get away with just adding HydroGuard and hoping the bennies would outnumber the baddies, or if I should chlorinate the water first, and then after it dissipates transfer to my res? That last part is a hassle so it would be cool if I could just pump it directly into my tank and add Hydroguard and be done with it. But I'm thinking I might need to kill any bacteria/algea first with Chlorine in a holding tank, and then after it dissipates transfer to res and add the hydroguard. Basically I am worried about creating an algea nightmare with all the stink and bugs that come along with that.

Thoughts?

 

[H2OPharmer]

Not sure about where you live but in the Northeast, they sometimes spray the lakes to kill certain weeds. I don't think that would be very beneficial.

 

[hotwaterkarl]

Not sure about where you live but in the Northeast, they sometimes spray the lakes to kill certain weeds. I don't think that would be very beneficial.

I'm in Canada. It's illegal to put anything like that into the lake where I am.

 

[hotwaterkarl]

Also I feed this lake water to my soil plants and they LOVE it.

 

[hotwaterkarl]

K well the expertise here sucks balls. Thanks for nothing peeps..

 

[DemonTrich]

It's been 2 days. Most of us growers have a very busy life and dont spend countless
Hours on here. Patients, patients, patients. Someone may chime in with the answer you really want. Someone already posted their thoughts, but you didn't seem to listen.

 

[Thejoeybrown]

Exactly what @DemonTrich said. Plus it is possible nobody has an answer... I don’t do “hydro” i do coco sk I don’t know. I would probably have the same concerns as you with the algae and not knowing what bacteria is swimming around. But maybe the hydro guard could handle that.

I’d be interested to see you experiment with it. If it works it would definitely save a lot of time/money/effort. Unlimited water supply

 

[Dbear180]

Outside it's probably a good idea. We had a small duck pond I would empty out into the plants occasionally, they liked it. Indoors tho, I think that's just inviting baddies in @ full speed. I used fish tank water before (water I saved while cleaning filters) for veg plants & accidentally invited fungus gnats into my grow. Guessing they were laying eggs in the above water filters before I switched over to a canister... you being a hydro guy I imagine the trouble could be exponentially worse.