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water Filtered water for DWC

SadisticPeppers

SadisticPeppers

Business Member
I've been scouring the forum and other places, and thus far I've yet to find anything even remotely close to a concensus on use of filtered water. In a prior post the point was made that if the water I give my pepper plants has an overabundance of minerals (as I strongly suspect mine does by the iron rust stains I have to clean off at least once a month from my bathtub's spout down to the drain), then that will likely affect growth/flowering/pepper development/etc.

That being said, would filtered water be best to use in a DWC system. I bought several DWC units from AlphaHydroponics, and should be getting the units in the next few days. I wanted to make sure that I didn't just put in filtered water if water with at least some trace mineral content in it was a better choice. I have a ZeroWater Filter, with a new filter, so I should have no trouble making it if needed. The friend who sold me the extra bottle of Clonex also told me about a good deal on some hydroponic nutrient solutions on Amazon, which I purchased this morning, so I got that avenue covered.
 
your concern should be PH and ppm, how ever you get there , knowing those about your water first is key, regardless of your preference on nutes PH and PPM must remain the constant


your zero water may have came with a ppm meter, how ever they are cheap, and i suspect they are not calibrated very well, but are better than nothing, hot peppers prefer 500-600 ppm which gives you 1-1.2 ec

ph you can get by with litmus paper for awhile and hit a ball park figure with them, again better than nothing, ph should be 5.5-6.0, most municipal water is closer to 7.0
 
Elcap;

The best best would be reverse osmosis stystem. I know you can pick up a 3:1 for about 200-300 bucks. if not, i was told you can you the hydrologic big boy/small boy and it will at least filter the cholorine/Chloramine.. I was told cholrine is the biggest killer.

http://www.hydrologicsystems.com/products/index.php?id=35&keywords=De-Chlorinators

http://www.hydrologicsystems.com/products/product.php?id=6&cat_id=34&keywords=StealthRO_100

http://www.hydrologicsystems.com/mediafiles/download_records/41_what_filter_should_i_choose.pdf


hope this help, Iknow i have a place near my house that has ro water and its like 1 buck for 5 gallons.
 
ro filters the water down to almost or at 0 ppm, municipal water can vary from 50ppm to like mine 250ppm, chlorine is an easy fix, i fill 5 gallon bottles and put an air stone in them over night, it dissipates the chlorine to nothing

so filtered or ro water really only helps the ppm allowing for more nutes due to the ec being higher with nutrients than minerals
 
Thanks for the advice, guys & dolls. I've already got a nutrient set for hydroponics which includes calmag and all the essential nutrients, but I'll definitely invest in some pH Up and pH Down to do the pH think on the DWC's :)
 
Don't worry about chlorine or chloramine. Some people add it to their system to keep it clean. Measure the PPM in your water. If it is <200 don't worry about it. Be very carefull adding cal-mag to your system you can get nute lock. Most nutes have calcium and magnesium. 500-600 PPPm for nutes is perfect.​

Here in PHX we have places that sell RO water. 5 gallons is ~$1. They are fast too. I did some calculations and discovered a RO system would not pay for itself very quickly. Also they are generally very slow.​
 
frosty said:
Don't worry about chlorine or chloramine. Some people add it to their system to keep it clean. Measure the PPM in your water. If it is <200 don't worry about it. Be very carefull adding cal-mag to your system you can get nute lock. Most nutes have calcium and magnesium. 500-600 PPPm for nutes is perfect.​

Here in PHX we have places that sell RO water. 5 gallons is ~$1. They are fast too. I did some calculations and discovered a RO system would not pay for itself very quickly. Also they are generally very slow.​
Click to expand...


hehe, i love those commercial ro units that sell water. they are mini waterplants! they use ro membranes that are like 20x as big as the undersink units, and at like 200psi in some cases.
a single membrane does like 1200gpd? and many have multiple.

 
If your water is pretty hard, just use distilled water. I used to use distilled water, but now I just use the municipal water and let it sit 24 or bubble out the chlorine like pepperdan said. No problems encountered yet.
 
Duly noted!
 
Got the DWC buckets and aerators today. I'm in the process now of filtering the water with my ZeroWater filter, then letting the buckets sit for a while to bring them to room temperaturew while aerating them... So far, I've got 2 of the 5 gallon buckets filled up, since the ZeroWater filter, while it's awesoe at filtering out pretty much everything, isn't necessarily the fastest filter out there. I figured that if I want the best, I'd better give my plants the best. And as I mentioned, I already got the liquid nutrients, and will be adding them to the water in the next day or so, before I even begin doing the cuttings...

Oh yes, and before I forget... How high do I fill the DWC buckets at first? As it stands right now, the first couple I've filled up, I have the bottom inch or so of the net pot submerged because I want to make sure the cuttings I do have access to the water right away. Am I correct in guessing that once the roots fill out and get to the bottom of the bucket, then I'll probably, at most, only need to fill the bottom half of the bucket? Or is that an incorrect guess?
 
inch above the bottom durring seedlings, inch below after established


photo-19.jpg
 
Cool beans, thanks for the info!
 
One more question I had...

For the DWC piping I had, like for the water level monitor, in order to put it in successfully, I had to use a small application of dish soap to get it to to go in. Prior to that, all I had to show for my efforts were several bloody knuckles trying to get the piping in. Upon activating the aerator for them, I saw that there were some soap bubbles in the water. Not many but there were just barely noticeable...

That being said, would a small amount of dish soap present in the water affect plant rooting/growth/flowering etc.?
 
pepperdan said:
inch above the bottom durring seedlings, inch below after established


photo-19.jpg
Click to expand...

Jeez Pepperdan, your buckets look brutal like rocket thrusters, nice setup!
elcap1999 said:
One more question I had...

For the DWC piping I had, like for the water level monitor, in order to put it in successfully, I had to use a small application of dish soap to get it to to go in. Prior to that, all I had to show for my efforts were several bloody knuckles trying to get the piping in. Upon activating the aerator for them, I saw that there were some soap bubbles in the water. Not many but there were just barely noticeable...

That being said, would a small amount of dish soap present in the water affect plant rooting/growth/flowering etc.?
Click to expand...

No I think your fine, as long as its a mild dishsoap and not a harsh one.
 
cant honestly answer that, i have had a little experience with rockwool, it was enough to tell me to stay away from it, it gunks up everything, and will clog your airstones, not sure if having it constantly submerged in the one inch above stage would be a good ideal or not, i think it would be great for ebb and flow and short term crops, but not a perennial, i dont believe it is stable enough

i am going on bucket #9 and hydroton has proven itself, very ph stable and reusable if you need too
 
I have been going to some classes here and they were saying that chlorine is one of the essential nutrients for plants.
We also use tap water here to water our plants at home and there are even hydropnic systems setup here that use tap water which contains chlorine.
No harm done to any plants yet.
Just thought I'd let you guys know.

However, this isn't the first time I heard or read documentation about chlorine being bad for plants.
 
the people telling you to remove chlorine from your water are usually part of the, "chemicals are bad, mkay?" crowd. in reality plants are SOOO not sensitive to chlorine. alot of greenhouses fertigate with chlorine in their system to keep microbes from clogging emitters.

however the essential mineral chlorine you are talking about is actually the chlorine ion Cl-

FWIW elemental diatomic chlorine the chlorine you see on a periodic table=chlorine.
the charged chlorine ion cl- =chloride
the charged diatomic chlorine ion cl2- = chlorITE
idk what cl3 is , but cl4= perclorate.

plants use the cloride ion. cl-.
cl- comes from any chloride salt like nacl or CaCl, or KCl, or.... MgCl2

chlorine.the kind they inject into your water is either sodium hypochlorite(bleach) or chlorine monoxide gas. they just call it "chlorine" because its sorta like a chlorine acid,
either of these when dissolved into water yield a hypochlorous acid.

hypochlorous acid=HCLO

to reiterate!
plants use Cl- chloride not bleach or "chlorine"
they are in no way sensitive to it in the amounts one would find in muni water...
 
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