800+ ppm out of well, limited options

[Lacey]

Here is my issue(s). The ppm is 800+ out of our well. I know the ppm needs to be much lower, but what can I do if that is not possible? I know some will say RO, buy water else where or get a filter. That just isn't possible because of the size of our grow. What other options are there?
Do I use less nutes to keep the ppm from going threw the roof?
I can not be the only one with naturally high ppm.

 

[mancorn]

You can get a garden house carbon filter (like the Boogie) on the cheap ($30-$40). It will definitely slow down your flow, so not practice for a huge grow, but will work for a garden grow.

 

[SweetLeafGrow]

I am on a well ands out of the ground, our water is 845 ppm. I was definitely having issues in the early part of my grow. This is my first grow and I have learned a lot. That PPM thing is a pretty big deal from what I learned. You do use less nutrients I believe because the plants will burn because the ppm of your water is the "base" as I understand it, and anything over what the plants need will cause burn. But then they won't be getting what they need. It's really a catch 22.

Anyhow, sorry I can't better articulate what I have learned. Check out this article that helped me a lot.

PPM and You: A Quick Guide | BlueSky Organics

While we try to make cannabis growing as simple as possible, some technical terminology is just unavoidable. Lately, we’ve had many novice growers ask us to explain PPM, TDS and EC readers, and how they all work together to help you grow better cannabis. Understanding these concepts isn’t the ea ...

blueskyorganics.com

I am not a large op that is for sure, just me makin medicine for myself. What I ended up doing is getting distilled water until I bought a distiller that I will eventually use to make RSO. I have used that to make distilled water and I also recently started using water out of my dehumidifier. Aside from making sure to add cal/mag to every watering, it hasn't been a big pain and my plants are and have been doing much better since I stopped using the plain well water.

 

[growsince79]

Here is my issue(s). The ppm is 800+ out of our well. I know the ppm needs to be much lower, but what can I do if that is not possible? I know some will say RO, buy water else where or get a filter. That just isn't possible because of the size of our grow. What other options are there?
Do I use less nutes to keep the ppm from going threw the roof?
I can not be the only one with naturally high ppm.

Collect rain.

 

[Oldchucky]

I don’t think they know where you’re at neighbor. Bummer with the preemies. I hope the smoke doesn’t trip mine. Good luck. Glad to hear you got a little bit of control over this.

 

[Lacey]

I don’t think they know where you’re at neighbor. Bummer with the preemies. I hope the smoke doesn’t trip mine. Good luck. Glad to hear you got a little bit of control over this.

I am sure your full of smoke as well. We had 3 stages in the greenhouse. Stage 1and 2 all in flower and stage 3 is still holding onto their veg state. But, I don't think it will last much longer. The smoke is so thick here that it looks like it is evening time the entire day. Nothing I can do about it till the indoor room is completed.
I hope yours don't flip and I wish you all the luck.

 

[Pushrod Monkey]

Are there no outlets to buy drinking water where you are? I haul every drop 45 miles. Here people have tanks in pickups. Water prices just jumped to $.27 cents per gallon.

I would be hauling. Especially if it’s that large a grow.

 

[FourPlants]

Are there no outlets to buy drinking water where you are? I haul every drop 45 miles. Here people have tanks in pickups. Water prices just jumped to $.27 cents per gallon.

I would be hauling. Especially if it’s that large a grow.

Pretty sure water is scarce enough they are stealing water out west right now

 

[Pushrod Monkey]

Well there’s always slow sand filters. Start building them.

 

[FourPlants]

I have to ask why RO isn't an option right now? Do you know how much you use per day? Can you support it with say a cheap 75GPD unit running full time into a storage tank?

 

[Lacey]

Pushrod is correct. The big growers are stealing water wherever they can. Our creeks are already dried. Water is being hauled in to them and it is driving our community nuts. I will not add to the frustration. Our grow is not huge. It is legal with our medical issues.

we have water, it is just bad water. We are looking into a filter system now. We know that our water ph and ppm is the main issues we have been having with our plants. We can lower the Ph easily, but the ppm is a big problem.
We rather do it cheaply as I have put a lot of money into the entire growing my own medicine. We do have a water storage tank. So if I can find a filter that will reduce the ppm to a much lower level, we can store it in the tank.
what water filtration system do you all recommend that can handle 2500 tank.

 

[Pondracer]

If it was me I would think about a large cistern and a way to catch runoff. With asphalt shingles its not the best but you may have another option of some kind depending on your situation. You would be surprised how fast they fill. Might not work all the time, but maybe complement your other water sources.

 

[Oldchucky]

Doesn’t it help to know 800 ppm of what? Maybe you should get your water tested for 50 bucks before you start throwing money into filters and such. 800 ppm of? Seems pretty vague.

 

[Lacey]

If it was me I would think about a large cistern and a way to catch runoff. With asphalt shingles its not the best but you may have another option of some kind depending on your situation. You would be surprised how fast they fill. Might not work all the time, but maybe complement your other water sources.

It snows here, so we have metal roofs.

 

[Pondracer]

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[Lacey]

Doesn’t it help to know 800 ppm of what? Maybe you should get your water tested for 50 bucks before you start throwing money into filters and such. 800 ppm of? Seems pretty vague.

800ppm is too high no matter what. Our water does not taste good and leans towards the salty side. Either way, the ppm needs to come down.

 

[Pondracer]

Thats one of the things that pushed me to consider a metal roof. I wanted it for yard irrigation. A hard rain fills 2000 gallons in no time at all.

 

[Pondracer]

800ppm is too high no matter what. Our water does not taste good and leans towards the salty side. Either way, the ppm needs to come down.

I might try running an RO test batch on your 800 ppm and measure the ppm of the waste. My system is sort of ridiculous, but most regular RO units have two filters up front before the membrane. You have sediment and something else before the membrane. So even the waste has to pass through those two cartridges. Lets just say thats enough to knock the waste down to below 200, plus your "good" water would come out perfect. Use the good water for drinking and use the now somewhat clean waste water for irrigation. You don't waste anything.

The real question is how many gallons of water per day and per week do you need for the irrigation?

 

[Lacey]

I might try running an RO test batch on your 800 ppm and measure the ppm of the waste. My system is sort of ridiculous, but most regular RO units have two filters up front before the membrane. You have sediment and something else before the membrane. So even the waste has to pass through those two cartridges. Lets just say thats enough to knock the waste down to below 200, plus your "good" water would come out perfect. Use the good water for drinking and use the now somewhat clean waste water for irrigation. You don't waste anything.

The real question is how many gallons of water per day and per week do you need for the irrigation?

Thats a good question..... I have no idea because we don't measure our water. We have a farm and a cabin that we supply water to. They also have a small farm.
We do watch our water use heavily. We would use the filter system for our home and for the plants. The animals are doing fine on the well water, If that changes then we will figure it out.
My guess is 900 gallons a week and that is me giving a high guess.

 

[Ponky]

You could build a sand and carbon filter. Those are agricultural sized. Don't know much about it. But farms do it.