Well water quality

[Locrian99]

hey guys I’ve done some poking around and haven’t really found an answer on this (or much info on it) other than simple PPM levels. So I have well water, and it’s hard, however the PPM is only around 150. The Ph is high at 7.6, I haven’t tried mixing nutes in it yet and checking but I’m going to guess it’d drop into the 6’s. I had a local water company out last summer was looking into a water softener so I have some more detailed info on what’s in there and that’s where my question is. I have very high iron and silica levels. Worried they may be too high for watering (currently using distilled). So here is what I know is in there:
hardness (lime). 10 g.p.g.
iron (rust) 3.5 p.p.m.
silica 38 p.p.m
maganese .4 p.p.m.

i know it’s is rather specific just trying to figure out if this water is usable (thought about growing a plant in a closet with a few cfl’s just to try it) but thought if someone might know the iron/silica levels that are acceptable I’d check. Thanks

[gdogfunkly]

I'm on a well with some degree of hardness, but not enough to warrant a softener. I do have an active charcoal filter in place and one of those white fiber pre-filters in a clear housing that I change out every couple of months as the water smell returns. I used that water for my outdoor plants this summer and never adjusted the pH or even tested anything and it seemed to work just fine (other than the yellow leaves at flower since I added no nutrients and thus had a reduced harvest).

Now that I know a lot more, I plan to pH the water next summer, but am currently using RO water plus cal-mag/nutes for my indoor. Not sure that helps at all lol

[Locrian99]

Might look into one of those RO things, just kind of annoying using water I’m buying at the store when I literally have a sink in the room with my tent.

[gdogfunkly]

I already had an RO system in place for my salt water aquarium, but the RO water feeds to my fridge and it's a big pain to get 1 gallon of water out of the front of the fridge. I'm considering a second line off the fridge feed to fill a bucket and have more on hand as needed. From what I've been reading, RO is great because you are starting without anything in the water and you add cal-mag, nutes, etc and you know exactly what's in the water you are feeding. I feel like I'm playing Mr. Wizard when I mix up my nutes haha

[Locrian99]

Yea that’s pretty much what I’m doing with distilled water at the moment. My watering process for four plants takes me about an hour, would probably be quicker with fewer breaks for bong hits

[Sockfilter]

Spot on GDF..

I'm also on well with a 244ppm, however I have an R/O system setup and use a 5 gallon bucket to fill with a float valve that shuts it off when full. Likewise we can also get a small 3.5g air pressurized tank that fits under the sink and can T off of that to your fridge/sink or wherever. Amazon has for $40ish.

Not sure if you run one or not, I have to run a small aquatec pump (more money) inline to help keep the pressure in the right range for the R/O membrane and also something to think about is the waste water. I am on septic and do not want the waste water filling up the septic so I pipe it outside to holding tank for outside soil veggie garden.

L99, I have run the raw well water before with ok success, as long as you keep your pH in the right range, you will be good. But just like GDF, I like to know exactly what is in my H2O for our girls.. That away when issues do arise (and the will) you will be able to check off H2O issues real fast.

I'm no scientist, however those levels you mention do not seem worrisome to me, will be looking forward to others replies..

[Sockfilter]

No need to circulate the 5 gallon bucket, the R/O water will be fine, I let it sit for a day or so anyways so it can suck up CO2 out of the air and pH can become stabilized. Fresh R/O that has not sat out in open air has a pH of 7, however sitting in open air, it becomes acidic and will drop to something around 5.5-6.5ish.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Absolutely Socks, everyone needs to conserve ALL our resources, but most especially water, it's already short
supplies in some states.
Waste is not good at all, I know you gotta do what you gotta do, but damn,at least try to conserve it like your doing Socks. Good Job.

[Sockfilter]

Thanks DAAS, so glad to see others that really care about this planet we call home, we are killing her faster than she can fix at the moment...

I live on 15 acres and keep it all natural with trees all over, I can see my little spot in 50 years (I will be long gone) being the place people come to enjoy fresh clean air as mother nature intended..

Wife and I are actually talking about getting rid of the septic and going with composting toilets and all other grey water waste would be recycled for outdoor use..

We do what we can...