Hard water

[Flowergirl]

I have a water softener that uses salt. Can I use my tap water on my pot plants?

[stump]

I have softened water also and use it all the time with no issues.

[Flowergirl]

Thank you so much for your replies. I was really worried about watering. Follow up question: did you have to worry about ph w softener?

[quirk]

I deleted my last comment because I wanted to be clear. If you have a choice, always use tap water over water that has been through a softener treated with salt.
Once in a while no problem, but used exclusively, salt softened water will reduce the health your plants. While the calcium and magnesium in hard water causes problems with build up in your plumbing, scale and stains and leaves you skin feeling itchy, it's actually a benefit to your plants, unlike a sodium chloride build up in your medium,

[Tone3000]

I have a water softener for our incredibly hard water. I used the tap (softened) water for my first grow. I battled nutrient deficiencies the whole way. I think the salt was causing nutrient lockout. This time, I am getting water from the outdoor hose spigot, which is not on the softener, and lugging it inside and upstairs to my grow area. I am letting it sit for at least 24 hrs to come up to temperature and allow chlorine to dissipate. Hopefully this time works better than the last (although I did still manage to harvest 3.5 oz of dried bud from my deficient auto that I used the softened water on).

I know this is an old thread, but I thought that I should add this since I had the same question as you when I started. If you have had a different experience, I'd like to hear about it!

[SoOrbudgal]

Hey Tone3000 it's still a relevant subject. I have high calcium well water hard water well used for household. I do not have a softener system for it. But i've used it for over 30yrs on my MJ indoors an out. I've saved gal jugs filled them an just let them sit i use liquid grow an bloom when needed without issues anymore because i've learned how to correct the imbalance with my home made soils.

[Rwise]

Tone3000 Have you checked with your water provider to see that they still use chlorine? I ask as many have switched (mine has years ago) to chloramine which does not gas off. Many things can be used to kill it, lemon juice, molasses, etc..
Do you PH the water?

[Tone3000]

Hi Rwise, thanks for caring to ask! My water utility uses chlorine and I do pH the water.

I started by using the liquid testing kits or the paper strips to check pH but was still having deficiencies. That's when I got a pH meter, to be more accurate and eliminate pH as the cause of the issue.

The plant started out really nicely but as the salt built up in the soil, the deficiencies developed then worsened and the plant looked pretty awful. It was a fighter, though, and still produced 3.5 oz which I am very happy with (lots of light helped). I imagine what it would have been without the deficiencies!

My next question is going to be on the best flushing additive to use just before harvest. I'm going to flush the salty coco from the first grow so I can re-use it (and flush pre-harvest). I'm confused about whether I need to flush the coco during the grow - I've read conflicting advice, some saying just flush before harvest, others saying to flush when flowering starts plus some other time in addition to pre-harvest. I'm still muddling through that, if you have any input on it.

I'm also having bad luck with germination. First seed popped with no trouble using the paper towel method. Now, I've had two duds in a row and I'm getting concerned. But statistically, two is no big deal. Three, then I'll really worry.

That's my entire growing story, if you've held on this long!

I've also got another thread started that has no replies at this point, asking about how much cal-mag I need to use for growing in coco with hard water. If anyone can weight in on that, here or on that thread, I'd appreciate it a ton! The experts say that coco grows should always include cal-mag and that using hard water eliminates the need for cal-mag. I'm not sure where that leaves me, and I'd rather be pro-active in preventing deficiencies than reactive once they appear.