Clean vs tap water in ultrasonic humidifiers

[NEGreenery]

Hey guys,

I've been using this humidifer that I bought and I've noticed these small, white mineral deposits showing up on my tent floor, on my plants, literally everywhere...
This happens with tap water, as I have lots of minerals in it.

I don't have instant access to clean, distilled water to fill up my 5L humidifier with...
Is this going to cause some issues?

 

[Ponky]

Hey guys,

I've been using this humidifer that I bought and I've noticed these small, white mineral deposits showing up on my tent floor, on my plants, literally everywhere...
This happens with tap water, as I have lots of minerals in it.

I don't have instant access to clean, distilled water to fill up my 5L humidifier with...
Is this going to cause some issues?

Yeah. Biggest one being the hard water spots. And not knowing if it's PM or stains.. you don't need to use a humidifier most of the time anyway.

 

[Pushrod Monkey]

Those deposits are alkaline. Any acid including vinegar should remove most if not all if done before you start to see them. Same as with coffeemakers.

 

[Saul.Goodman]

I have hard water that is softened with salt and my water has never been an issue with my grows. I do have PH up and Down in case but I've found I don't need either for my soil grows so far.

Like @Ponky said, I don't use a humidifier at all. I find this pretty pointless unless you have a crop of sprouts to deal with. It eases watering in this case.

 

[green25field]

Sounds like you are in a very hard water area. you should always use purified water for humidifiers, apart from anything else you'll drastically decrease the usable life span of the humidifier. it will just get choked up with linescale. If you are going to get purified water is worth paying a bit extra for distilled. Personally I get my distilled water from here but most chemical companies will sell it relatively cheaply.

 

[crossfader]

Good and timely post. Last few weeks I've noticed dramatic reduction in exhaust flow from tent even when on high. Assumed it was the inline fan so just yesterday I pulled it out of the tent and decided to plug in and check out. With no filter it was blowing full tilt.

Put the current carbon filter back on and turned on and wouldn't you know it, that 3 month-old filter was fkn' clogged from the tap water I was using in the humidifier. Luckily I had a slightly used one as backup

And here I was ready to order a replacement off Amazon. That would have sucked to find I had the same airflow issue!

Finishing out current grow using distilled then shopping for an evaporative humidifier.

Another lesson learned.