COCO COIR PPM too high??

[ADSL]

Hi fellow growers I have a serious question because I should act now. My tap water is very hard (aprox 350PPM!) and I was wondering, should I get a reverse osmosis system going on on my water or do you think I can dilute it with destilled water and when the plant is old enough it should be fine to just give it tap(with nutes, obviously). I'm beggining next week from seedling in coco coir and I know it should be less than 100PPM on those first weeks. Thanks guys 🌱🌱🌱

[gbauto]

The best suggestion I could offer would be to test your water and see what's in it.

[9fingerleafs]

I have 700ppm well water and i dilute with drinking bottled water to a 350ppm base and then add nutrients. Works great for me but it's a 5 gal of drinking water expense every day

[ADSL]

Thanks guys. Right now I'm thinking about getting a water butt for rainwater and probably just add some cal mag and the nutes to it.

[changeofpace2014]

Hi fellow growers I have a serious question because I should act now. My tap water is very hard (aprox 350PPM!) and I was wondering, should I get a reverse osmosis system going on on my water or do you think I can dilute it with destilled water and when the plant is old enough it should be fine to just give it tap(with nutes, obviously). I'm beggining next week from seedling in coco coir and I know it should be less than 100PPM on those first weeks. Thanks guys 🌱🌱🌱

my tap is around 2300 ppm that adds .30 to my EC and considering the target EC is around 1.26 - 1.32 - I usually mix for 3 gal but add 4 gal.. I started mixing in half distilled and half tap when they need attention. RO is a thought but I do not think they are designed for 5 gal a pop, rather small glass of water or a picture. Perhaps I am wrong.

[9fingerleafs]

You mean 230 ppm? What scale are you using for ppm? What brand is your meter?

[changeofpace2014]

I use Hannah and it is set for E.C using the 5 cal settings. The pool strips we use for our pool indicated the tap water was 230 ppm hard most of it cal but it still effects the end result..I have recently starting using the Distilled water to bring that down so my E.C target is more relevant to my 3 part G.H schedule. My meter reads (1.xx) for E.C -

[9fingerleafs]

So The strips say 230ppm and the meter says 0.3ec?

[changeofpace2014]

A few pics will help - One thing is for sure the difference between tap and distilled or 1/2 and 1/2 has to be considered when mixing. If the tap water hardness was not considered and the target EC was 1.30 one would end up with a EC of 1.66 and that would be a very bad mistake.

So here is a pic of the ppm pool strip and I would guess it is around 200 - 220 ppm. Then we have the EC of distilled water at 67 F which is .01 and back to the tap water with a EC of .36 at 63 F. I just started mixing in some distilled water because the difference has become an issue.

cheers

[9fingerleafs]

Yeah it all good. Your strips are at the 500 scale. For every 1 ec = 500ppm so if you multiply 0.36x500= 180ppm.

My tap water is 1.5EC or 70ppm. I dilute 1:1 with destiles water to get a starting water of 0.7EC or 350ppm. Then I add 2EC or 1000ppms of nutrients and end up with 2.7 ec or 1350 ppm

[changeofpace2014]

9 Finger - those are some very tolerant plants - I think my girls would jump out of the pot and run if I gave them a feeding at 2.7 EC...

[9fingerleafs]

That’s why many people advices against developing recipes based on ppm, it’s just different in every scenario. The water to nutrients ratio is more about temperature humidity and evaporation the actual nutrient ratio it’s whats really important. During summer I use half the nutrients but I water twice a day. Just gotta figure out what works for you over time

[changeofpace2014]

Hi fellow growers I have a serious question because I should act now. My tap water is very hard (aprox 350PPM!) and I was wondering, should I get a reverse osmosis system going on on my water or do you think I can dilute it with destilled water and when the plant is old enough it should be fine to just give it tap(with nutes, obviously). I'm beggining next week from seedling in coco coir and I know it should be less than 100PPM on those first weeks. Thanks guys 🌱🌱🌱

Hey ADSL I hope some of the feed back on this thread helped your issue...

[ADSL]

Guys, sorry for taking so long to reply but I managed to get a water butt and collect all the rain water I can and EC values are amazing now, better than I expected. I shall have no more problems regarding tha. Thank you very much for your time spent answering my question, it's always a learning curve to me, growing weed. This forum is, indeed, pricess 👌.

Much love to you all.
Thanks again 👊