Water quality

[JayGee]

My municipal water report is an average of 4 quarterly reports.

PH: 7.7
TDS: 290

Is there any advantage in using a ceramic and carbon filter setup ($ 130 ) to reduce TDS or is a reverse osmosis ($ 300) or distillation the only way?

My plan was to just try my municipal water at a lil lower strength than recommended but thought id see what you folks think?

Btw, Im using AN Sensi coco nutes.

[starramus]

I'd go with the filter. You waste a lot of water with RO. I disconnected my Culligan RO system. Got tired of the gurgling, and the water bill.

[Toker1]

That’s good quality water. No need to filter. RO is unnecessary for a hobby grow. You can use an active charcoal type filter to remove chloramines if desired.

[George4green]

Have also heard of just leaving the water sit for 24-36hr to evaporate the chlorine but your water seems dang good with probably a lot of good elements in it for the plant. Mine well at 8 ph and 658ppm I use RO

[Toker1]

Modern day water uses Chloramines, won’t gas’s off like water in the past used to. So leaving it out to remove chlorine doesn’t work anymore.

[JayGee]

I don't see any chloramines mentioned in the report, only chlorine. I'll call to make sure lol.

[Toker1]

Chloramine is chloride with additional hydrogen elements. It’s what modern municipalities use to treat drinking water. Used to be chlorine gas...now it’s chloramine.

[JayGee]

Here's the list of chemicals they use. Looks like there's no chloramine.

[Toker1]

Chloramine is a form of chloride. It’s just bonded to another element. If you break it down chemically to its single elements, yes it has chlorine in it..so yes the report is correct and yes, chlorimines are what they use to treat drinking water.

https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/chloramine-disinfection.html

[JayGee]

I was under the impression that chloramines were from adding ammonia hydroxide to the disinfecting process?

I guess a call tomorrow is still needed, lol

[Toker1]

I believe that is close to how they manufacture chloramines.
Give the treatment plant a call. They can confirm what I am telling you.

[starramus]

As George4green commented let the chlorine evaporate for at least 24 hours. I do the same. I use water from the outdoor faucets to avoid the soft water lines indoors. So I have been bringing gallon jugs inside and letting them sit also warming the water. Your water does look better than most. Are you currently in a grow? How are your plants doing? Is there a problem you are trying to diagnose?

[JayGee]

Im starting my first grow. I have everything, just need to make sure I'm doing it right . 4 x 3 gallon fabric pots in a 4x4 tent. 480w qb288 (2× 240w boards). Canna coco is the medium.

Seeds: 2 x mephisto -chemdogging auto
1 x mephisto - northern cheese haze auto
1x dinafem- dinamex auto

[LurkingInTheGrass]

JayGee

Out of curiosity, do they give you a breakdown of what is in the water? (The 290 ppms)

a filter system would suit your purpose over an RO

I run DWC. House water from a well, my water measures ~850 ppm. It is potable, just a little salty for taste (and coffee)

instead of researching my options - I got an RO unit. Good deal, Amazon sale, does what I want it to. Makes water for my girls, coffee/drinking water. In that order 😁

using RO, the first thing I do is treat the water by adding silica and CAL-MAG.
Puts my RO at ~400 ppm

might be worth getting your water tested (just to see what is in it)


Green thoughts

[starramus]

I have a groundwater well, and municipal water, but wouldn't dare make coffee with either. Only Arrowhead for my Keurig. It's glyphosate free right?

[LurkingInTheGrass]

Maybe

scroll to the bottom of their homepage, to see who their evil masters are

[JayGee]

Here is one page of the full report for 2018.
I went back a few years and ppms tested a lil higher back then, and the ph was a bit higher. The trend seems to be a decrease over the last few years(probably affected by precipitation and runoff?).

[George4green]

I thank you be fine but I’m not an expert I myself like using RO even if I had good water because then I know the water is completely clean. Well mine comes out 12-15ppm. I try to make everything perfect from the start so when I screw it all up I can only smack my self in the nads

[Toker1]

Haha. Yes, RO gives you more control over what elements go into your plants diet. Only thing I would say to counter it that it’s very costly to run and maintain. If you are a hobby grower, probably not worth the costs running from an efficiency perspective.

[LurkingInTheGrass]

Toker1 - thanks, I was reading wrong column 😁

Apologies for confuson

[starramus]

"Im starting my first grow. I have everything, just need to make sure I'm doing it right . 4 x 3 gallon fabric pots in a 4x4 tent. 480w qb288 (2× 240w boards). Canna coco is the medium."

I believe this whole discussion to be verging on OCPD. Your water will be fine for cannabis. Bring the pH down, and you are good to go. Keep it simple. Good luck

[Guest]

A lot of municipalities still use regular chlorine..mine does too and breathes off every time. you have fine water , I been using the same area (7.3 ph& 0.2ec) water as you..for years and never had issues. I think your good to go with just aging it...Great question though!

Idfwy bro...your a know it all on every post. Make yourself scarce on my comments etc. I love learning new shit from people who experienced it. Not regurgitating what they read online...peace yourself out son. Your dead wrong on this subject and many others. Rest your neck

[Toker1]

Lol. So glad you can block people on this app. Makes comments like yours (all ego statements with no scientific backing) easy to dismiss.
Expect radio silence from this point forward. I’m not getting paid to teach you this stuff. Go research it on your own, the information is there as you can clearly see from all my links. You will find out what I already learned working in water treatment and contracting for government municipalities like DWR and LADWP.
Don’t be butt hurt so badly and maybe you will learn something new. ✌️

[JayGee]

It's all good guys, i appreciate the responses and discussion. My municipal water utility's response was that everything that's in it is in the report... lol.
Ill give the tap water a go and see what happens. If i can salvage an old water filter setup i got laying around, ill throw a chloramine/chlorine carbon filter in it and use that for the plants.

[Toker1]

Lol. The report is a chemical analysis about what results are after treatment. No indication on how the water gets treated. So make sure to thank that moron for all their help (or lack there of).
When I was contracting for DWR, I learned about how gassing modern day water was not recommended for removing chlorine. If anything attempting to gas it off only leads to water vapors escaping alone. So attempting to gas off will only increase the chlorine concentration (by a very small negligible amount) due to water vapors gassing off but chlorine molecules remaining in the water. Can’t dump tap water into storm drains (after hydro testing equipment) because the chlorine won’t gas off and marine life will become affected by the monochlorine left in the water.
The positive side to this is that water that is distributed to our homes, doesn’t risk biological contamination like the water of the past did (when chlorine was able to be gassed off). This is another reason chlorine will no longer gas. That and the fact that expelling chlorine gas into the atmosphere is not safe for humans either. Let’s not forget, the exact same chlorine gas has been used in chemical war fare. Not something you want vaporizing around your home.
If you want to test this for yourself...purchase a chemical analysis before and after attempted gassing. When the amounts of chlorine remain the same before and after the attempt...then you will know for yourself that modern day water won’t gas off chlorine.
Goid luck buddy. Happy growing!

[Rwise]

Years ago we got warnings our water contained a dangerous substance, chloramine, made from the leaves rotting in the water supply (ammonia) combined with chlorine.
Today they use chloramine,,,
Water wells here I dont trust, at least 2 wells have chemicals, 1 has salt another went salt so 2, 1 is sulfur heavy, 1 has great water 2 have had good water (not in use). Some of these wells are within 50 feet of each other and all are in a half mile circle, each one tests different from good to plug it! My point here is test that well water often!

[MJTECH]

Years ago we got warnings our water contained a dangerous substance, chloramine, made from the leaves rotting in the water supply (ammonia) combined with chlorine.
Today they use chloramine,,,
Water wells here I dont trust, at least 2 wells have chemicals, 1 has salt another went salt so 2, 1 is sulfur heavy, 1 has great water 2 have had good water (not in use). Some of these wells are within 50 feet of each other and all are in a half mile circle, each one tests different from good to plug it! My point here is test that well water often!

You can have two wells side by side and they may test differently due to depth.


Out here we use shallow wells 30 feet or so for irrigation and while the water stinks to high heaven, the agriculture loves it, potable wells are now required to be a minimum of 75 feet as too many people where complaining to the county, not the well driller, when their shallow wells ran out of water during the dry season.

[Rwise]

LOL I remember running low on water in dry times! And the "better" water here is the shallow wells, 1 of mine is only 25 feet deep (wet years water comes over the top), and it does not deliver much water. (I also have 1-25 foot deep with bad water) Deeper wells, if they go past the second layer of lime stone, they get bad water. The good water with good delivery is between the 2 layers of lime stone (here). I also have a deep well, some 5000 feet! yes 5000 feet deep with an 8 inch casing (dry oil hole) this well has a ceder plug at 450 feet deep, it cannot be pumped dry (we tried) and it is one of the sulfur wells. A good well went down 80 feet and never hit any rock at all (I have a hard time finding a place I can dig with out TNT!!),, whats under the ground varies a lot!!