Best store bought water for DWC?

[Ovi]

Hello Everyone,
I am coverting over to a DWC set up and I was curious what would be the best store bought water option? I do have to purchase it do to have really hard water and not being able to install filter. Any info would be more than appreciated.

[Cannabliss]

Hey Ovi welcome to the wonderful world of DWC. I either buy my R.O. water from one of those walk-in drinking water places and fill up 3 of my 5-gallon containers. If my back is bitchin, then I buy a few of those 2.5 gallon ones at the nearest market, nothing fancy. I get the one that says purified water. It also goes through an R.O filtration process (so it says lol). I get a PPM between 4 to 6 from the two. Distilled water is also used by some and also has a low PPM level. Just my 3 cents.Happy growing!

[LurkingInTheGrass]

I have similar issues with my well water, bought an RO Buddy for less than a $100, and a $10 garden house timer. Makes 15L of RO in 4 hours. Great for drinking and my hydro.

[LurkingInTheGrass]

It was costing me $2 / 15L of RO at the water store - so I figured the buddy paid for itself in 2ish months

[DW2]

Howdy Ovi, I would NOT recommend buying distilled or R/O water for a DWC grow. The minerals in the water, either well or city water, are good for the plants (unless there is arsenic or lead oxides present!). You will just wind up adding the trace minerals back into the feeding schedule (CALiMAGic or other supplements). I live in an area where most of the city water comes from wells in an aquifer and I have not had any problems growing with it. I see (on the forum) folks having problems with adjusting and maintaining the pH of their nutrient solutions, and it seems that most of them are using either distilled or R/O water. The treated water (city water) and also well water is safe to use on your plants, but I would never recommend using either rain water or pond water in a DWC setup.

[JohnC]

I only use RO water in my DWC. My local tap water tastes and smells like pool water due to the high content of chlorine. It's also very high in PH, pushing over 8.0 at times. Plus I prefer to have full control over what goes in my water; with tap water you have to take into account all of the minerals and chemicals that may be present.

I get my RO water from WalMart at 35 cents a gallon.

[NAKEDGARDENER]

Just goes to show the difference in usage of RO or distilled water in grow cultures... I know for hydro it shou,don’t be a issue since it’s more likely you are having to monitor changes in the reservoirs ph levels often not to mention when changing them. So yes I can see in some cases RO WATER is best, but yet, insider this, RO water is effective.y ‘deadwater’. It can often have high ph and needs additional buffering especially for boron if boron has not been considered, although this is present in feeds, RO water can be more beneficial for hydro, but in the past I have found that my yields were a lot less potent, and no way near as dense or smelly. Just my penny worth lol. I would use a phew RO. For flushing my soil perhaps. Forgot t mention I ended up using bottled spring water when my water supply wasn’t suitable, ppms wwre good zero contaminants, obviously no additives and under a dollar a gallon,

[LurkingInTheGrass]

Hrmm, much food for thought - thank you.
I might have to get the well water officially tested (Just to see what is in it, more than the 'safe to drink label 😁 ).
My TDS meter typically shows 790ish ppm for tap water that has stood for 15 minutes. I measured it once, during a week of rain, cause I was curious - 832 ppm.
Tastes salty, a Brita filter took some of the salt out, but not enough for my taste. It's ok for cooking, cleaning, etc. NOT COFFEE, because that would be just wrong 😁.

I figured if I consume the RO, it was ok for the plants. CALiMAGic and PH++ are part of my grow. Read somewhere that using RO made cal-mag supplement a requirement.

[NAKEDGARDENER]

Absolutely I agree on you filtering for your drinking requirements, when faced with what you describe in your well water, and yes get it checked ASAP could contain god knows what, I have well water but here its ppm is at 25 and ph at 6 from the tap. No heavy metals nor agri run off so lucky, I guess it must be due to the granite rock strata here.

[Ovi]

Thank you all for the recommendations!! I'm in the works of getting everything switched over to DWC, I was curious cause I used the Wal Mart RO water for my soil grow. It worked for me but after reading these I'm gonna have to experiment with my well water and see how the levels are. Also would you all recommend a reservoir? I am using 5 gallon buckets. Thank again for all the info!! 😁