If you use RO or distilled water you NEED CalMag Plus

[hatecable]

What about filtered water? Will that have the minerals you need or is it just as bad as distilled/ro? Im about to set up my first aquafarm and am glad i ran into this thread.

[LOC NAR on probation]

If it is not RO/distilled. Then you need an EC/PPM meter. Besides PH your EC/PPM are most important. You might be good to go. My bro has well water under 100ppm's. Works good with hard water nutes.

Depending on the filter and the source of water, will answer your question.

Remember if it has chlorine in it it has one function. To kill organic matter.

It is a pain sometimes getting water but well worth it in the long run of getting over the big hurdles of hydro. RO units can be gotten cheap.

When you know you started with nothing to screw you up then it is alot easier to fix problems.

Once I got my meters and water straight problems went away.

[hatecable]

Ok so i posted asking more about cal mag, and then found the answer 15 seconds later. After so many hours of reading..i hurt in weird places:yippee:

[Revanche21]

If it is not RO/distilled. Then you need an EC/PPM meter. Besides PH your EC/PPM are most important. You might be good to go. My bro has well water under 100ppm's. Works good with hard water nutes.

Depending on the filter and the source of water, will answer your question.

Remember if it has chlorine in it it has one function. To kill organic matter.

It is a pain sometimes getting water but well worth it in the long run of getting over the big hurdles of hydro. RO units can be gotten cheap.

When you know you started with nothing to screw you up then it is alot easier to fix problems.

Once I got my meters and water straight problems went away.

I didn't use a PPM meter in my grow o_o

[stinkyattic]

Sometimes you will be lucky. I have grown hydro successfully without a ppm meter, because my source water was perfect (I didn't even know it, just dumb luck). And I have FAILED at soilless without one. If you suspect even slightly that you have a source water problem, take it down to the shop to be tested, and if you will need to do ANY adjusting, get a good EC meter.

[hatecable]

How much calmag are you supposed to add? Just use whats on the label?

[stinkyattic]

If you don't have an EC meter, just use what's on the label, but you really should have some way of checking conductivity if you are in a position to need calmag, and you'll want to add it until your ppm reads right around 300, before adding any other nutes or checking the pH.

[hatecable]

does that go for seedlings through maturity?

[stinkyattic]

Seedlings need plenty of calcium too; you'll have to read the schedules for the answer to your dosage question, but I've always just used tap water on mine. If you have to use DI/RO/rain, my hunch is that you still need calmag, but at a lower dose.

[SAP420]

I have been using soft water for a long time not using Sodium Chloride but Potassium Chloride to get the hardness out and have not had any problems at all growing.