bottled water good for hydro or not? seedlings/germination/rez?
Printable View
bottled water good for hydro or not? seedlings/germination/rez?
good question I allways start with distilled bottle water, some times I just use plain old tap water ph runs a little higher with the tap water I just adjust it.
Bottled water is very good. Just make sure if it has been run through reverse osmosis that you use CalMag or something to put back the nutrients it strips out. Maker sure to adjust PH to 5.5 or so.
Bottled water is great.... I've used both, but I actually prefer to soak my seeds in a mix of water and liquid kelp for about 12 -15 hours. As for seedlings, It's great. And for your reservoir, it's even better. It allows you to pretty much know what's going into your reservoir without unknown particles from a faucet.
Buy the large 5gal units to save money,, and listen to OY calmag is needed, dont forget, the girls wont.
You can buy a R.O. for what you will have in bottled water in probably one grow. That stuff aint cheap, plus hauling water will get old, quickly!
b0nger
That's true!
But then again, to get started, those r.o. machines are way expensive. If you've got the money now I would get one, otherwise not.
I collect rain water with my empty gal. bottles and use mother nature for most of the winter,plants seem to love it I also add my nutes and check my ph. before adding to resivior my water has a lot of clhorine in it you can smell it sometimes so I prefer not to use it only if I have to.
You might already know this, but you can get a chlorine neutralizer.
Thanks Opie never heard of that before, I will look into this item.
YOu can get R.O. water from a machine for around .25 a gallon. It's not that expensive.
Glacier Water Home Page
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
These machines are at almost every albertsons supermarkets here in Florida, 30 cents/gallon. The best water i've ever used.
It said multi stage filtration. That might be RO.
My two cents:
Bottled water essentially come in two varieties. The one with minerals added (like calcium/magnesium) and the one without (typically pure reverse osmosis water). For example the 25 cent per gallon machines you will find outside grocery stores are invariably just pure RO water and by far your best deal, but I guess you would need CalMag etc. The bottled water you buy inside the store will often (not always) contain minerals but it will say on the bottle (like "minerals added for flavor") but those are way too expensive and not worth it at several dollars per gallon usually.
I should have been more specific. Chlorine neutralizer is a liquid and you add 1 teaspoon per gallon or something like that. I think most hydro stores have this. on-line or otherwise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big len
Thanks opie
R.O. units are not expensive. 100-150 bucks for a 3 stage does not seem unreasonable to me. PLUS, I aint gotta haul water all the time.
osmosis reverse osmosis, r/o filter, reverse osmosis filters
There is a 3 stage, 40 GPD for 126.00. 40 gallons at .25/gallon = 10bucks last I ciphered it out. Seems like it would not take me long to recoup 126 bucks. 504 gallons to be exact.
Its Sunday night, lights on, rez is low, its 3 A.M. and I cant sleep and get in the "gardening mood", but now, I hafta run to the supermarket to buy water ?............ah shit, gotta be a better way.
Who said this was a cheap hobby anyways?:D:D:D
Keepin it green,
b0nger
Those look like the same kind of filters you get at HD for your water heater or whole-house filters, or irrigation filters. I wonder if you did a little research, you could end up with the same thing for less money by visiting home labyrinth. On second thought I'll bet they also have RO filters there. Duh.