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Looking for products that add minerals back to ro water

bryanwheat

bryanwheat

New member
Hi, wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem as to what i do with my ro water. In soil, hydro and coco i have to use quite a bit of calmag in order to keep from getting calcium defficiency. I have used different nutrients in each medium as well. Fox farm with the soil which was ocean forest, advanced nutrients in dip hydroponics and using gh flora trio in coco currently. I find myself having to add double doses of calmag at the very least to keep the plants from losing all their leaves. Ph has never been an issue. The only common thing between all 3 grows is the ro water. With my last grow before the ro system i had to add just a tiny bit of calmag here and there, but have been having to use quite a bit with my last, and current 2 grows one of which is in the drip hydroponic system, and coco. Currently at 2x the normal dose in both mediums, but with 2 different nutrient systems. Using Gh Calimagic on everything due to it's 5 percent calcium but only 1 percent nitrogen. I am going to switch back to tap water and let the chlorine evaporate for the hydro reservoir to see how much it helps them since they are into flowering, but my coco grow is still 3 weeks in and i would like to find some information on maybe products or if anyone has had a similar issue and got it straightened out. I am to the point where i am getting pretty efficient with my grow's with most perimeters, but this has been giving me trouble with my last 3 rounds. Any help is much appreciated.
 
when I make my coco I use five gallons of water <I add twice the amount of cal mag for 5 gallons ,Ive never had a problem with cal mag deficiency . are checking your runoff,if you dont get enough runoff with coco your ec builds up until toxic ,

what is the ec or total dissolved solids in your tap water. I have very high tds/ec my water reads 4 to 5 hundred before I add nutrients I added a whole house filter for chlorine but the only way to remove my starting ec is with a RO system, I just cant bring myself to waste more water than I use
 
Not sure how bad your tap water is, but you could possibly use a little mixed with your RO water to add some minerals back. That is what I am doing. Just be sure to let it set for a day before using to remove chlorine.
 
My ro water is 30ish ppm, my tap water is 300ish. I get around 10-20 percent runoff when i water. My coco grow is about 3.5 weeks in and has been showing signs of calcium deficiency since week2. I started off with a half dose of calmag since i grow auto's and usually half strength works well, but bumped it up to full strength 1ml/l and seems a little better. I am at 2ml/l in my hydroponic system which is 2x the normal dose and still taking leaf damage.
 
IT is 300ish ppm. sometimes more, sometimes less. There's a lot of calcium in it as it builds up on everything. As of now i am gonna change my reservoir to tap water the next change in that system just to see what happens as my bigger plants are not happy. Even my small fastbuds plants are starting to show a bit of deficiency here and there. I am not super worried about those 2 as they only have 3ish weeks left and it won't effect them much in that time, but one of the bigger ones isn't too happy at all. I'd like to find some kind of product to add the minerals back to finish out the coco grow with ro water though. Didn't really want to get hardwater buildup in my setup is why i originally went with the ro as everything gets hardwater buildup around here.
 
No suggestions for you on adding minerals to your ro water but I will say that your hard water buildup (white residue, spots on glassware) is lime buildup, not calcium, This means you have high pH tap water like I do. I'm adjusting my pH down to 5.5 for pure coco to prevent lockout. Hydro systems are similar in needing 5.5 to 6.5. Calcium uptake is best in that range. I have a faucet filter for my tap water and use that pH adjusted. My nute issues went away after I got pH down..
 
Lime has a lot of calcium carbonate in it, that is where a majority of the calcium in water comes from. I keep my ph in check in both setups as well as the last soil setup. The hydroponic setup i am using advanced and adjusting as well to 5.8-6.2. I haven't had any issues when i have used tap water, but i wanted to get away from any residual chemicals or heavy metals is which why i added the ro system, and have had issues with not enough calcium since then. I know i can just run the tap water and not have the issue, but i am trying to figure out what is needed to be added to the ro water to get it to where i can grow without calmag, or at least not as much.
 
This is the results of tap water in the reservoir for 2 days. It was very clean before and then some kind of white foamy goo is covering everything now. I use h2o2 as well, so it could be the water reacting with the h2o2 or the water reacting with the advanced nutrients, not sure. Plants are flowering pretty good now, and likely won't make it if i can't come up something to treat the ro water with.
 

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