Tap Water

[PLOOKERKING]

Meh neighbor has those big ass dempseys. Feeds em goldfish

 

[Seamaiden]

He should be feeding them bugs, instead. Goldies aren't good food for anyone. They're like potato chips.

 

[CannasaurusR]

Hi Seamaiden, sorry (I'm born to ramble) My well water is 240 plus ppm the nearby town water is 40-80 with chloramine, so I am resorting to melted snow (rain in summer) mix at 10:1 with my well water 40-60 ppm with that and no chorine is my standard now. I flushed the yungings with straight meltwater (o-10 ppm) and 3 days later and a harsh trim and all is going good so far. After reading this site more, and thinking before topdressing, I realized my error was using unwashed coco coir (cheapo stuff of course organic certified in my defense) in my veg mix. WAYY to much sodium in conjunction with hard as hell water, well hi ph runoff and lockout looking like deficiency in the soil.....duuuhhhhhh, 51 and never stop learning, thnx for your patience.

 

[CannasaurusR]

yeah midwest, stopped using mine years ago, tried brita for a few weeks but was doing something strange to ph so I stopped. Rainwater/wellwater mix now for me.

 

[MidwestToker]

I grew with 350 ppm well water for years with 285 ppm of it being Calcium carbonate. It would take 5ml of ph down to get a gallon of water to 6.5

 

[CannasaurusR]

I grew with 350 ppm well water for years with 285 ppm of it being Calcium carbonate. It would take 5ml of ph down to get a gallon of water to 6.5

I found (organic soil) that lowering ph with acid does little to alleviate salt buildup, it is pouring more ppms to an already 'heavy' concentration and makes the soil worse. Removing the dissolved solids (salts) is the goal, especially when my well water is neutral, and I don't concern myself with ph at all, except when isolating problems. Just curious Midwest, how long do you let the treated well water sit before doing the ph retest? I imagine the ph would rise until all the acid is neutralized by the carbonates and the bottom of your container will have precipitate in the bottom. Do you pour off the water and toss the sediment? I may be over simplifying but try a baking soda solution to 350 ppm and add your ph down, what happens? acid neutralized after bubbly reaction and carbonates settling out into bottom of solution. The ph may be right back to where it was before adding ph down, depending on concentration of acid. I have a swimming pool I fill with well water, and I can't get the pH under 7.2 until 2-3 months into the season. High ppm makes a buffer solution that eats up acid by the gallon without altering pH until the salts are all bound, then 1 dropper full of acid can swing the pH more than the 50 gallons of acid added over a period of months in a huge reservoir. Its confusing complicated shit ppm ec pH, most of us don't have a good handle on the chemistry, so we buy chemicals and use charts to get it right. I'm still learning (took bio-chemistry in college 30 years ago), but most of the advice out there is personal specific, or retreaded Advanced Nutrient sales science (sorry AN). I keep going back to basic chemistry for reference, and for ease and the best inputs for your plants, less is more, IMO. If I was using a phDown product, it would be lemon juice, but even that is unsound thinking, to me, anyway. Solutions sold in a bottle are just more problems.

 

[CannasaurusR]

He should be feeding them bugs, instead. Goldies aren't good food for anyone. They're like potato chips.

They sell these feeders up here called 'rosey reds', as locally the feeder guppy supply chain has collapsed due to overbreeding (too many s1 guppy breeders LOL). I didn't really think about nutritional value from species to species.....another thing to consider! I keep non tropicals cool water native fish, cool having a couple of bass in my 75 gal. every bug we can catch gets the tank, what a cool show. Also neat using the filter rinsing water on the ladies, if I keep an eye on nitrogen levels. Thnx

 

[Seamaiden]

They sell these feeders up here called 'rosey reds', as locally the feeder guppy supply chain has collapsed due to overbreeding (too many s1 guppy breeders LOL).

A friend of mine still in the trade told me that good guppies are pretty much gone! I am astonished.

I keep non tropicals cool water native fish, cool having a couple of bass in my 75 gal. every bug we can catch gets the tank, what a cool show. Also neat using the filter rinsing water on the ladies, if I keep an eye on nitrogen levels. Thnx

Have you already identified yourself as another fishkeeping stoner....? I think we have a thread for that, don't we?

 

[MidwestToker]

I found (organic soil) that lowering ph with acid does little to alleviate salt buildup, it is pouring more ppms to an already 'heavy' concentration and makes the soil worse. Removing the dissolved solids (salts) is the goal, especially when my well water is neutral, and I don't concern myself with ph at all, except when isolating problems. Just curious Midwest, how long do you let the treated well water sit before doing the ph retest? I imagine the ph would rise until all the acid is neutralized by the carbonates and the bottom of your container will have precipitate in the bottom. Do you pour off the water and toss the sediment? I may be over simplifying but try a baking soda solution to 350 ppm and add your ph down, what happens? acid neutralized after bubbly reaction and carbonates settling out into bottom of solution. The ph may be right back to where it was before adding ph down, depending on concentration of acid. I have a swimming pool I fill with well water, and I can't get the pH under 7.2 until 2-3 months into the season. High ppm makes a buffer solution that eats up acid by the gallon without altering pH until the salts are all bound, then 1 dropper full of acid can swing the pH more than the 50 gallons of acid added over a period of months in a huge reservoir. Its confusing complicated shit ppm ec pH, most of us don't have a good handle on the chemistry, so we buy chemicals and use charts to get it right. I'm still learning (took bio-chemistry in college 30 years ago), but most of the advice out there is personal specific, or retreaded Advanced Nutrient sales science (sorry AN). I keep going back to basic chemistry for reference, and for ease and the best inputs for your plants, less is more, IMO. If I was using a phDown product, it would be lemon juice, but even that is unsound thinking, to me, anyway. Solutions sold in a bottle are just more problems.

You are absolutely correct that the ph will rise with time.
I've never seen a organic soil have a problem with salt build up. The only time you'll have salt build up is when your using Synthetics.
. With high carbonate levels I learned to just allow plenty of run off to wash out the built up carbonates And not to mention that are plants require a steady supply of cal as it's not a mobile element.
And we don't need to talk about pools. I maintain a 12,000 gal pool at work. My college days where 40 years ago.
I use 4 ingredients now Cal-mag, CNS 17 bloom ( coco & soil Formula ) , Hydroplex and ph up and I rarely have to run over 850 ppms. And I Run RO now.
I only do Organics outdoors I try to keep the dirt out of the house it's bad enough dealing with peat and coco.

 

[CannasaurusR]

Yes outdoors is never an issue, but in a 5 gal bucket for 12 weeks, or boiling my wellwater for coffee=salt buildup. Finally getting a handle on all this, funny I won't think twice before drinking my water, but can't use it on plants indoors, without cutting it first! LOL Next thing will be me getting caught pissing in my composter LOL

 

[CannasaurusR]

A friend of mine still in the trade told me that good guppies are pretty much gone! I am astonished.

Have you already identified yourself as another fishkeeping stoner....? I think we have a thread for that, don't we?

Yes, yes Chameleons for a few years too (shit, are they expensive to feed). Wife forbids snakes, I just can't keep the outdoors, OUTDOORS lol And we have dogs out the ying yang here. Our dogs (Mama and 2 daughters) like hanging out with us when we smoke and absolutely love sitting out in the shade of the 'trees' in summer. They love munching the lawn near the gardens. I think the organic soil is making everything sweeter!

 

[Seamaiden]

CannasuarusR, it's carbonates that are building up, not salts. It's a known problem in ag in areas with low rainfall and high irrigation.

 

[lurrabq]

I was wondering if all my excess snow could be melted and stored for useage.

Any way to construct a cistern where you are?

 

[PLOOKERKING]

My thoughts exactly. Looking into cistern as i type....love it here. Nearest neighbor is over a mile away. Truly heaven

 

[CannasaurusR]

Hi Seamaiden, my area is highland forest pasture and has never been intensively farmed. Only pasture, never cropped but my groundwater flows through underlying limestone bedrock on top of granite. the carbonates are obviously from rainwater filtering through the strata, picking up large concentrations of ca+ and CO-. I'm glad its natural, clean, and pure but a wee bit (lol) too hard. On the upside, won't have to melt snow for much longer, daytime hi just hit above 32F for the first time yet this year. Rainbuckets a fillin' soon!

 

[CannasaurusR]

I use the term salts for any carbonates nitrates basically any 'ates'. I may be slightly wrong from a chemist standpoint? sorry to confuse, but I understand it this way. 0 ppm means no 'ates' and I think all liquid fertilizer is a salt solution? Going to check.....

 

[CannasaurusR]

I use the term salts for any carbonates nitrates basically any 'ates'. I may be slightly wrong from a chemist standpoint? sorry to confuse, but I understand it this way. 0 ppm means no 'ates' and I think all liquid fertilizer is a salt solution? Going to check.....

Any chemical compound formed when an acid reacts with a base, with all or part of the hydrogen of the acid replaced by a metal or other cation. Sorry to be picky, but this biz is easily confusing, and terminology is objective with 'organic' chemistry. Salt is what feeds our plants , but concentrations are key. Thanks for the advice Sea.

 

[CannasaurusR]

Sorry Midwest, but indoor organic growing will accumulate salts. Salt builds up in a kettle when using spring, town, well water. Thats not synthetic and yes salt will build up in a container unless the water ppm content used can be completely absorbed by the plants and microlife. A container only has so much biological activity per volume which is easily overtaken(so to speak) by high conc. of ppms. Outdoors it don't happen because.....0 ppm rainwater with a 6 ph or lower pouring into no container with no bottom= constant flushing in a highly active medium. My problem is water ppm and a containers capacity to deal with this. Flushing is a waste of time, and self defeating in this scenario, so I am coming up with the cure, not treating the symptoms. Using more chemicals to control too many chemicals is fundamentally flawed, but it sells a lot of high priced lemon juice. I'm trying not to be a sucker anymore, the more I learn, the less I do (and spend).

 

[CannasaurusR]

It also seems weird that growers use an inefficient, expensive RO unit to scrub wellwater and then add synthetically produced cal mag to replace what they just filtered out. I can see this in a chlorinated system but wow a little math and a rainwater bucket makes more sense. We too often spend money to keep from learning, and real organics is a lifestyle change, not a diet. I'm getting there, was considering RO then read a bit more, and yeah catering to paranoia is their game. The products do what they say, but when you learn how and what they do, you learn you don't need this stuff, just a little more effort. Do I need a HEPA filter on my vacuum central ac? absolutely not, unless you live in an environment similar to your hydroponic reservoir. Do they work? yes, until you open a door. I think the time change has me all defensive, apologies to monsanto et al. I'm trying to shed the knee-jerk corporate shill syndrome, but I come off as a dick, respect to you all.

 

[organix4207]

I try to use rain water , lake water or melted snow......Canada eh. Lol Some wells should be fine.
You should get well water tested and with a few tweaks to your nutrient/mineral program some can be used. Mine is high in calcium and iron not bad things. Unless used in excess of course.
This reply is for chlorine free well water. I'm a country boy , only chlorine is in the cement pond ya hear!!