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water oxygenated/aerated water

H

Hells Bells

I've been reading up on the benefits of rainwater vs. urban water supply. Some opinions say that rain water may be more oxygenated and beneficial to plants.

I settle water in a reservoir for my seedlings to remove chlorination etc...

Worth aerating it?
 
If you already have a bucket and air pump / stone setup...then go ahead and aerate it.  I doubt you'll see a difference and I definitely wouldn't go out and buy equipment to do it.  I've never aerated my water for plants and they seem to grow just fine.
 
Aeration is extremely important in hydro because, as well as introducing oxygen to the nutrient, it controls pathogens. 
 
There is a new hydro technique it starts with k. I can post a video of it later. The guy gre big lettuce, bok choi and other leafy greens in static water. One solution for the life of the plant and it worked very well.
 
Aerating is good yet I do it more for the sake of removing chlorine. Though it doesnt remove chloramine. BUT! Thats what I got an r.o. system for. Plus its just all around better water.
 
Sarge said:
There is a new hydro technique it starts with k. I can post a video of it later. The guy gre big lettuce, bok choi and other leafy greens in static water. One solution for the life of the plant and it worked very well.
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These must be the only plants on earth that don't need oxygen for growth.
 
willard3 said:
These must be the only plants on earth that don't need oxygen for growth.
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Apparently not, apparently the way the system works is by the plant developing oxygen absorption nodes at the top half of the roots while the length of the roots stretches and reaches for the nutrient rich water. As the plant grows, the water level will go down. You don't top it up. As the water level goes down, the oxygen absorbing parts of the roots are still above water while the nutrient seeking parts of the root system grow longer to seek the water.
 
Its called The Kratky Non Circulating Method.
 
Probably not. Soil growers usually use other stuff to aerate the soil. Creating pockets of air and having a good soil mix will ensure your plants can breath. I know soil growers eho aerate the water to break down the chlorine.
 
Sarge said:
Home reverse osmosis systems are a huge waste of water.
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How so?
Sarge said:
Probably not. Soil growers usually use other stuff to aerate the soil. Creating pockets of air and having a good soil mix will ensure your plants can breath. I know soil growers eho aerate the water to break down the chlorine.
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I've seen soil folks just bubble up their water prior to using it. Worked fine for them. Just go with a light soil mix heavy on the perlite.
 
7potquezada said:
How so?
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The pressure required by reverse osmosis is too low. Usually the returned usable quantity of water is a very small percentage of the water being put under pressure. There is alot of waste water. Wiki suggested that you only get about 5 to 15% back as usable RO water.
 
Hmm, I'm using a growonix 150 gpd. Works great for me despite the slow process. Nothing can be perfect my friend, besides seems better to me as opposed to going to the water store every so often I need to stock up again. This way I get just what I need no more, no less.
 
-cheers.
 
ro units can indeed waste a tremendous amount of water, it all depends on your water pressure and water quality.  you can increase efficiency by adding a booster pump and or a permeate pump. or by pretreatment of the water. ... tho most find the added expense not worth the rewards.  pretreatment can also be used to extend the life of the cartridges.
industrial scale RO process use pressures are astonishingly high, up too 1000psi if i remember.
 
im curious as to why you need the ro water tho. is your tap super bad... or are you running a hydro setup?
 
i have what i would consider bad water... 300mg/l combined carbonates. i had to adjust my old ro based hydro fert schedule to account for the terrible tendency of my water to scale out carbonate when i dose up the regular amount of calcium nitrate.
i ended up using about 2/3'rds... replacing the rest with potassium nitrate and dropping some of the epsom salt too. i also had to drop the ph to like 5.5, but acid is oh-so cheap...  
 
even tho you already bought the ro unit, you might be able to do the same or something similar.
 
My city water is heavily chloronated plus has a real high amount of sediment. It made my plants go into a lock out awhile back. I adjusted my nutes to accomodate but I just said screw it and switched completely to ro water. It's just less of a hassle for me. I noticed the difference in my plants vitality so fast it just convinced me to stick to it. It works for me.
Not to mention i drink it myself and noticed the difference. Makes nutes easier to work with even though im in soil I still want that control of knowing whats going into my plants.  Not to mention I dont want to affect my microherd. Beneficials and all.
 
never been a rainwater guy myself....imo rainwater is too much of a PITA to store to be worth doing imho...
caveat ... unless you need a very small amount of water or live in a super dry climate where water is logistically or price wise very expensive.
best case you are paying like a buck a gallon for storage when its all said and done.  IBC totes are but ugly, but probably the best bang for the buck.
 
most people like to capture water from downspouts on their roof... problem is downspouts are crammed full of organic material that dissolve phosphates and nitrogen etc into the water... the end result is that the collected water is prone to collecting algae, and will require maintenance of the collection system and or treatment of the water.  EVEN 100% light occluded tanks can and will collect algae give the proper amount of dissolved nutrients and oxygen/co2....i forgot how or why they can do this, but they can and do. first hand knowledge as well.
 
Rain water is not too big of a pain to harvest if you have a rain barrel. And its great quality if you live in the country like me. I use it in my hydroponic system when its running and to water my potted peppers
 
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