Municipal Water Source Alternatives - Which Store bought Water ?

[hightech316]

Looking to transition away from treated municipal water for my plants. Last year, I used tap water with pH Down to maintain a 6.5 pH level, but I'm seeking a better solution.

While I plan to install a whole-house reverse osmosis system, I need an interim solution using store-bought water.

I am growing in Living Soil, What should I look for when selecting bottled water for my plants? Should I specifically seek out RO water, and are there particular mineral contents or pH levels I should watch for on the labels?

 

[Week4Bytch]

Looking to transition away from treated municipal water for my plants. Last year, I used tap water with pH Down to maintain a 6.5 pH level, but I'm seeking a better solution.

While I plan to install a whole-house reverse osmosis system, I need an interim solution using store-bought water.

I am growing in Living Soil, What should I look for when selecting bottled water for my plants? Should I specifically seek out RO water, and are there particular mineral contents or pH levels I should watch for on the labels?

Any bottle will do, they usually pH near neutral (7pH) I exclusively use natural spring "Crystal Geyser" from seedling to party cups (then after I transplant the party cups, I RO my tap). It's been working out great. And only because I'm extremely anal about my water sources. I could probably get away with it for awhile (just using tap water) with new pots, but if you reuse your soil, sodium and calcium can quickly build up in your soil eventually causing potassium lockout. When I get super lazy I'll water from my tap or mix it with the Ro filtered water 50/50. If you have a large enough soil bed the tap water won't bother it as much, the soil will buffer it to where it needs to be. I have an RO filter so fuk it, might as well use it. And I top dress every three weeks or so, not worried about the zero content in the RO water, and if I was the 25% mix with tap should be plenty.

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

For a while now, I've considered buying a still to distill my tap water. It looks like a fun project. It would be cost effective, I think. Distilled water in the local stores costs as much as $2 per gallon, so it might pay for itself eventually--probably within 60 or 70 gallons or so, depending on the cost of the still. Once that's paid for, there's only the energy cost.

 

[Newty]

Looking to transition away from treated municipal water for my plants. Last year, I used tap water with pH Down to maintain a 6.5 pH level, but I'm seeking a better solution.

While I plan to install a whole-house reverse osmosis system, I need an interim solution using store-bought water.

I am growing in Living Soil, What should I look for when selecting bottled water for my plants? Should I specifically seek out RO water, and are there particular mineral contents or pH levels I should watch for on the labels?

What living soil do you grow in?
Good soil has buffers to control ph.
You need to test the ph of the soil itself with a soil specific tester or a slurry test.
It takes certain elements to change soil ph.
If the soil ph is off, changing the ph of your water usually doesn't do anything to the ph of your soil because it doesn't have the proper elements to do so. Same is true even when adding nutrients to the water, organic nutrients are more likely to change soil ph then synthetic nutrients but the soil ph still needs tested directly to know.

My point is, if you're doing it because the ph of your water isn't ideal then changing water source may not show any noticeable effects and may not be worth the cost when growing in a quailty soil.

 

[Blastfact]

I do soil and Gaia Green and use it right out of the tap. Don't even screw with ph and all that crap anymore....

 

[Natep]

Looking to transition away from treated municipal water for my plants. Last year, I used tap water with pH Down to maintain a 6.5 pH level, but I'm seeking a better solution.

While I plan to install a whole-house reverse osmosis system, I need an interim solution using store-bought water.

I am growing in Living Soil, What should I look for when selecting bottled water for my plants? Should I specifically seek out RO water, and are there particular mineral contents or pH levels I should watch for on the labels?

Order yourself a rv filter. It is only carbon. All it will remove is chlorine. I have three tents all with living soil. It’s what I use. Connects right to the garden hose. Works good.

 

[hightech316]

I do soil and Gaia Green and use it right out of the tap. Don't even screw with ph and all that crap anymore....

My city water is terrible. I was looking into a RV filter. Since it is only a seedling , Figured I'd use gallon water for time being.

Im using Gaia Green as well.

Pro Mix HP
Gaia all purpose ( gaia bloom when time )
Worm castings
kelp meal

 

[Natep]

My city water is terrible. I was looking into a RV filter. Since it is only a seedling , Figured I'd use gallon water for time being.

Im using Gaia Green as well.

Pro Mix HP
Gaia all purpose ( gaia bloom when time )
Worm castings
kelp meal

What is so horrible about it?

 

[hightech316]

What is so horrible about it?

My water has always had the chlorine smell. The pH is not too bad , 8.5 .

Looking into what was in my water ( https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=KS2017308 ) . I don't want any of these chemicals to mess up my cha-cha .

I'm sticking with distilled, until I can afford a filter :-D