Rainwater feeding ?

[Steve705]

Bought a rain barrel today. It’s been raining super hard and filled up in about 2 hrs haha. I tested the rainwater and had a P.H @6.0 the TDS @ 2 PPM. This seems pretty good to me. Would this water be good for my indoor plants ? Gotta be better then tap water right ?

My tap water P.H @ 7.0 and TDS @170 ppm.

 

[Dirtbag]

Rainwater is all i use for 8 months of the year. Treat it just like RO.

That tap water looks pretty good too though, I be tempted to use that if it doesnt have chloramine in it. If you use the rainwater I would bring it up to 100ppm with calcium carbonate or Ag gypsum. Or if your tap water does have chloramine you could mix the rainwater and tap 50/50.

 

[Steve705]

Rainwater is all i use for 8 months of the year. Treat it just like RO.

That tap water looks pretty good too though, I be tempted to use that if it doesnt have chloramine in it. If you use the rainwater I would bring it up to 100ppm with calcium carbonate or Ag gypsum. Or if your tap water does have chloramine you could mix the rainwater and tap 50/50.

Can you store the collected rainwater for a while? Just wondering if there is a certain length of time before alge or bacteria would start to contaminate it.

 

[Dirtbag]

I store mine in a 5000 gallon cistern all year, It passes through a 20 micron and 1 micron filter then through a UV light to sterilize.

Outdoors in a bucket, you need to keep light out of it and could probably shock it with a little chlorine and then bubble it off.

 

[Nugbender]

I store mine in a 5000 gallon cistern all year, It passes through a 20 micron and 1 micron filter then through a UV light to sterilize.

Outdoors in a bucket, you need to keep light out of it and could probably shock it with a little chlorine and then bubble it off.

How do you add the filters and the UV? How would one do this on a smaller scale?

 

[Dirtbag]

How do you add the filters and the UV? How would one do this on a smaller scale?

It's a pretty simple system. This is what it looks like in my grow shed. Well, this isnt finished but the filters and UV chamber are there. My res sits where the white bucket is. Was a complete kit I got a Canadian tire for about $350, I just added the extra prefilter seperately.

 

[Kanzeon]

Bro that's amazing! I use rainwater too, but nothing that intricate. Right now I use old gallon milk jugs to fill 5 gallon buckets outside and just bring them in, and my filtration system is "get the water from the top."