Tap Water PH, PPM. What do i do?

PlumberSoCal said:

I used a mashed potato and yeast mix for micro worms. I also had vinegar worms and fruit flies, mainly for the killies. Brine shrimp was the Angelfish fry staple. I would collect the shrimp in a net then soak it in a vitamin solution then feed. I could get those angels to quarter size in two months and ready for sale. Even made my own shrimp hatcheries out of two liter bottles and tank filters from sponges and 1/2" pvc pipe and had a blower to run all the tanks. Sure glad I'm cured of ever wanting to that again!

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Lol amen

PlumberSoCal said:

I used a mashed potato and yeast mix for micro worms. I also had vinegar worms and fruit flies, mainly for the killies. Brine shrimp was the Angelfish fry staple. I would collect the shrimp in a net then soak it in a vitamin solution then feed. I could get those angels to quarter size in two months and ready for sale. Even made my own shrimp hatcheries out of two liter bottles and tank filters from sponges and 1/2" pvc pipe and had a blower to run all the tanks. Sure glad I'm cured of ever wanting to that again!

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Reminds me of a bad prank we tried to pull off. A not too well liked associate was bragging about his new salt water pool, and how he kept it extra salty so he would float better...claiming it was the same salinity as the Great Salt Lake. My buddy who had the fish business bought brine shrimp eggs by the 70 lb bag. A few bags later, his pool was very, well, biological. The shrimp promptly hatched and gummed up his filter quickly, then the dying ones started to decompose. With a big pool full of extra salty water and a zillion brine shrimp swimming and floating (while they lived). He had to get a local well drilling company to come in and drain the pool, as the salt water was considered too salty for the local sewerage treatment plant. He blamed it on his ex wife's jealous lover. :)

Jimster said:

Reminds me of a bad prank we tried to pull off. A not too well liked associate was bragging about his new salt water pool, and how he kept it extra salty so he would float better...claiming it was the same salinity as the Great Salt Lake. My buddy who had the fish business bought brine shrimp eggs by the 70 lb bag. A few bags later, his pool was very, well, biological. The shrimp promptly hatched and gummed up his filter quickly, then the dying ones started to decompose. With a big pool full of extra salty water and a zillion brine shrimp swimming and floating (while they lived). He had to get a local well drilling company to come in and drain the pool, as the salt water was considered too salty for the local sewerage treatment plant. He blamed it on his ex wife's jealous lover. :)

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I know how nasty that must have smelled. I'd have a 2 liter bottle go bad on occasion and damn, the whole fish room would stink for days. Sounds like something I would have done when younger.

Jimster said:

Reminds me of a bad prank we tried to pull off. A not too well liked associate was bragging about his new salt water pool, and how he kept it extra salty so he would float better...claiming it was the same salinity as the Great Salt Lake. My buddy who had the fish business bought brine shrimp eggs by the 70 lb bag. A few bags later, his pool was very, well, biological. The shrimp promptly hatched and gummed up his filter quickly, then the dying ones started to decompose. With a big pool full of extra salty water and a zillion brine shrimp swimming and floating (while they lived). He had to get a local well drilling company to come in and drain the pool, as the salt water was considered too salty for the local sewerage treatment plant. He blamed it on his ex wife's jealous lover. :)

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Bahaha to funny

cemchris said:

For every gallon of water an RO filter pumps it dumps 2-5 gallons of "waste" water down the drain. The amount of water that goes to waste depends on how efficient your RO filter is and there for cost of the unit. Looking them up (been years since Ive used RO) you can get as low as 1:1 now for the cheaper units which is decent. It still means for every 40 gals of water out of the RO filter at min you will dump 40 gals down the drain.

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It's actually called a Tall Boy not Hiboy (unit from brand Hydrologic). It is a filter to remove the chlorine while leaving the minerals. It's good if you have decent water to begin with and want to use bennies or go organic. Something like your case at 590 it wouldn't be.


As far as your PPM and PH going wacky are you in DWC? If so yes that matters.

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right on that is quite a bit of waste. I'd have to push that water elsewhere cuz thats too much down the drain man. 5 gal RO water is 1.25 in the town i live in, so not too shabby for now.

Yes im in DWC. CAn you explain what goes on when PPM drops, PH raises,, and vice versa?

S.WestFarmer said:

right on that is quite a bit of waste. I'd have to push that water elsewhere cuz thats too much down the drain man. 5 gal RO water is 1.25 in the town i live in, so not too shabby for now.

Yes im in DWC. CAn you explain what goes on when PPM drops, PH raises,, and vice versa?

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Well if you arent using RO that alone can just be from the water. PH and PPM will rise and fall depending on what your plants are eating. As they eat nutes the PH will rise and the PPM will fall. In DWC this is something you keep track of and steer your plants by watching the PPM. If it is constantly falling up the PPM some. You want it to creep down at a steady pace. If your PPM is going up or staying steady you need to back off the nutes. Also why you do rez changes since the plants can take up what they need and when doing add back you can OD them on a certain nute and cause lockouts if they are only eating something and not something else. PH wise I always tired to keep DWC in the 5.5-5.7 range.

The is a lot of info about this floating around. Look into the RDWC guys and gals. They have been playing this game for a while.

cemchris said:

Well if you arent using RO that alone can just be from the water. PH and PPM will rise and fall depending on what your plants are eating. As they eat nutes the PH will rise and the PPM will fall. In DWC this is something you keep track of and steer your plants by watching the PPM. If it is constantly falling up the PPM some. You want it to creep down at a steady pace. If your PPM is going up or staying steady you need to back off the nutes. Also why you do rez changes since the plants can take up what they need and when doing add back you can OD them on a certain nute and cause lockouts if they are only eating something and not something else. PH wise I always tired to keep DWC in the 5.5-5.7 range.

The is a lot of info about this floating around. Look into the RDWC guys and gals. They have been playing this game for a while.

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Great clear explanation!

S.WestFarmer said:

Whats goin on Farmers? I stay out in a small southern new mexico town and we source our water from an aquifer. I've been using the tap water on my ladies, and just recently started reading up more on PPM's and what nots, so im concerned about the water i have been using and its safety relative to my plantitas.
According to my meters, the PH is sitting at 7.0, meanwhile the PPM is at 590.
Is it safe to continue using the tap water, or should i maybe buy RO water or something? If i must add, the water tastes a hundred times better than the neighboring city water, so i was quite surprised to find that the PPM sat so high.
Ive added a picture of what the water company gave me when i asked for their consumer report as well.

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S.WestFarmer, you've got a ton of answers here and enough info to confuse most. I think a couple of things need to be clarified; are you asking about feed water or runoff water? Makes a big difference. Or are you inside and not in soil? These sites don't separate the indoor folks from the outdoor well. Most assume indoor as I guess that's where most are growing. (I suppose legalization will be changing that) The information is very different for inside vs outside and should be better sorted. Anyway, I was going to just tell you that with a PPM that high of your base water, you'd better at least thin it out some with distilled water for the seedlings at least to avoid overfeeding them and locking them out. VERY EASY TO DO with such hard water that is too hard by itself for seedlings. Anyway, we need to start at inside or out?

cemchris said:

Well if you arent using RO that alone can just be from the water. PH and PPM will rise and fall depending on what your plants are eating. As they eat nutes the PH will rise and the PPM will fall. In DWC this is something you keep track of and steer your plants by watching the PPM. If it is constantly falling up the PPM some. You want it to creep down at a steady pace. If your PPM is going up or staying steady you need to back off the nutes. Also why you do rez changes since the plants can take up what they need and when doing add back you can OD them on a certain nute and cause lockouts if they are only eating something and not something else. PH wise I always tired to keep DWC in the 5.5-5.7 range.

The is a lot of info about this floating around. Look into the RDWC guys and gals. They have been playing this game for a while.

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I just started using RO water this last week. I appreciate your explanation, it is very helpful man. I've got two new ladies just entering week 3. I look forward to putting all this info to use on my grows from here on out man. Thank you all again for the patience and teachings.

GDub51 said:

S.WestFarmer, you've got a ton of answers here and enough info to confuse most. I think a couple of things need to be clarified; are you asking about feed water or runoff water? Makes a big difference. Or are you inside and not in soil? These sites don't separate the indoor folks from the outdoor well. Most assume indoor as I guess that's where most are growing. (I suppose legalization will be changing that) The information is very different for inside vs outside and should be better sorted. Anyway, I was going to just tell you that with a PPM that high of your base water, you'd better at least thin it out some with distilled water for the seedlings at least to avoid overfeeding them and locking them out. VERY EASY TO DO with such hard water that is too hard by itself for seedlings. Anyway, we need to start at inside or out?

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Yeah man, DWC. ive posted my specs in previous post along with pics. Also, i started using a mixture of 3/4 RO water and 1/4of my tap as recommended by Aqua since its so hard. Feel like this plant isnt gonna make it, she took a lot of abuse. But the next ones will only be better, and so forth until im the king pin! buahahaha... no just kidding but really look forward to learning more and getting better.

I think ima chop her down, Shes yellowing everywhere and i dont even got buds out yet. Roots are looking heathy again, but i think its too late to save. Ive attached a picture in case anyone wants to chime in and give me their thoughts.. But its a sad dilemma. Thanks for all your help. Also showing my two babies. Gonna transplant to soil wednesday or thursday, make room for the new seeds coming in.
Think those roots are ready for soil?? i got some mycorrhizae coming in for the transplant. Gonna use Ocean forest from Fox Farm, maybe add a little more perlite.
And i snuck in my future jalapenos in the cup there! got another 6 going outside. So far growth has been the same for indoor and outdoor jalapeno in soil.

I'm from the school that NEVER chops anything down if I have room for it. I guess I grew up when it was impossible to get smoke, and every tiny bit was hoarded. I can even remember trying to smoke stems back in the 70s Mexican smoke. Bllecchhh!! If anything, assuming that you are converting over to soil, I would stick it in it's own bucket/container, with whatever you are going to use, and forget about it. Water it as needed, but don't feed it or do anything else and I'm sure it will come back fairly quickly. Even if you plant it in plain Promix with no fertilizers or anything, it will come back to life. Simply planting it in Promix and doing nothing but watering it every few days, I guarantee it will snap out of whatever funk it is in.