Hard/Soft Water

[zooloo10]

Hey guys,

I was wondering what you guys all use for water? I live in Delaware, which has a relatively low amount of dissolved minerals in the hard water. I have a water softener in the house, which I have heard if pretty bad for plants. I don't have a water filter available to deal with it. I do know I need dechlorinate the water. I was planning on just using a bubbler from an aquarium i used to have.

What do you guys think? Suggestions?

[Grower]

Hey guys,

I was wondering what you guys all use for water? I live in Delaware, which has a relatively low amount of dissolved minerals in the hard water. I have a water softener in the house, which I have heard if pretty bad for plants. I don't have a water filter available to deal with it. I do know I need dechlorinate the water. I was planning on just using a bubbler from an aquarium i used to have.

What do you guys think? Suggestions?

Did u check your water ppm?
I usually let the water sit in a bucket with a small air stone for 24h before using it

[Tony]

Thanks for starting a water thread. Check with your water utility for what is in your water. My utility, like most big NA cities use chloramine. 2mg per liter residual. Been reading that to remove, it has to be bubbled with Ascorbic Acid, found in vitamin can tabs. Anybody dealt with this?

[zooloo10]

So I checked my water quality report. And the Total Hardness and Hardness from just calcium respectively are 110 and 65 PPM (or 1 grain I believe). The conductivity in umhos was 399 and the conversion factor to Total Dissolved Solids in PPM is about 0.64. So my municipality has on average 255 PPM of Total Dissolved Solids (only 65 from calcium, and I'm assuming 55 from magnesium salts).

My utility also only uses chlorine (from what I can tell) to clean the water at 3.5 PPM left in the water. Which from what I heard you can just leave it in direct sunlight to degrade the chlorine. But that's not really feasible in the winter since I don't want my water to freeze.

Thanks for starting a water thread. Check with your water utility for what is in your water. My utility, like most big NA cities use chloramine. 2mg per liter residual. Been reading that to remove, it has to be bubbled with Ascorbic Acid, found in vitamin can tabs. Anybody dealt with this?

Also definitely interested in the best way to remove chlorine/chloromine. I know a lot of people in the commercial hydroponics industry just use a reverse osmosis filter + bubbler to get rid of all solids and chlorine in the water. But I'd much rather find a cheaper way without the RO filters.

[Maxxor]

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[zooloo10]

Thanks for starting a water thread. Check with your water utility for what is in your water. My utility, like most big NA cities use chloramine. 2mg per liter residual. Been reading that to remove, it has to be bubbled with Ascorbic Acid, found in vitamin can tabs. Anybody dealt with this?

I found an interesting study done by the US Dept. of Agriculture and forest service, https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/html/052 ... 31301.html

Basically it details the process of using Vitamin C to destroy chlorine in water. Their conclusion was that if passive methods are unable to be used to remove chlorine (aka direct sunlight and wind to disburse chlorine into gas. "Approximately 2.5 parts of ascorbic acid are required for neutralizing 1 part chlorine."

So my water quality report said I had 3.37 PPM of chlorine in my water * 2.5 = 8.5, we will round to 10 PPM of Vit C I need to add. Which is about 10 mg /Liter or about 37 mg/Gal. Interesting read for sure.

Still wondering about what people do to their hard water to make it more suitable for hydroponics, if anything. Would love to hear from people.

[Jolly Green Giant]

I'm out in the country on a well that runs 175ppm and 8ph. it was tested a few years ago and I know it's hard water.. mainly high iron and calcium...

all I do is run it from a hose to a 30gallon res tank with a small air stone and let it set at lease 24hrs before I use it( just in case it's chlorinated..) normally I have to refill every 5 days or so.. I'm sure I'm not producing my best with it but it really doesn't cause to many problems.. I have more problems by switching medium using what I got instead of what I work well with.. ( just using peat moss and perlite instead of old faithful pro mix)

RO filters would most likely help me a lot.. but I like the taste of mine over most others... I'm almost 100% sure it's my water source! so I just ph and try to de chlorinated it.

cool little trick if it is chlorine(don't know if chloramine works the same way) stick your clean arm in the res and stir it.. your skin will absorb the chlorine like it does when you swim in a chlorinated pool.

[zooloo10]

I'm out in the country on a well that runs 175ppm and 8ph. it was tested a few years ago and I know it's hard water.. mainly high iron and calcium...

[...]

RO filters would most likely help me a lot.. but I like the taste of mine over most others... I'm almost 100% sure it's my water source! so I just ph and try to de chlorinated it.

Fair enough, ill take steps to dechlorinate and just work with my hard water.

[Tony]

[quote=Tony post_id=2287 time=1511803881

I found an interesting study done by the US Dept. of Agriculture and forest service, https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/html/052 ... 31301.html

Thanks for that. Also the table in that study shows the ph dropped from 7.6 to 6.2. It would be perfect for me, figuring the amount and how to apply will be the hard part.

[zooloo10]

Thanks for that. Also the table in that study shows the ph dropped from 7.6 to 6.2. It would be perfect for me, figuring the amount and how to apply will be the hard part.

No problem man. If your in America, and know who provides you water, they are required to put out a yearly water quality report, which is where I found my numbers.

The equation for using ascorbic acid should be as follows, per PPM of chlorine add 2.5mg of ascorbic acid per liter of water used (9.5 mg / Gallon).