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water What is your water preference?

kcso53

kcso53

Is distilled water better to use than a water purified by reverse osmosis or perhaps baby water? It's my understanding that distilled pretty much has no nutritional value, correct? Is it that peppers prefer distilled only? Reason I'm asking is because I spoke to a Botanicare Nutrient rep and he said that their products are meant to work in conjunction with a water that doesn't have all the nutrients taken out. Any suggestions, comments? Thanks.
 
Distilled is a bit overboard for plants if you ask me, maybe for seedlings though. The Baby water we used to make the formula with is purified with flouride added. Not sure if that is helpful for plants, but I doubt it will hurt. I don't have a RO system, and too expensive to buy distilled or whatnot to water over 130 pepper plants alone, so I use regular old tap water that I let sit for a couple of days to let the chlorine release first. Next year I will install a couple of rain barrels.

jacob
 
I think Botanicare's hydro nutes are to be mixed with tap. Pure water doesn't provide an adequate buffer. For example, Pure Blend Pro Grow can lower rainwater's pH to 3-4. Also, some of the formulas don't supply enough calcium.
 
thaichillihead said:
I think Botanicare's hydro nutes are to be mixed with tap. Pure water doesn't provide an adequate buffer. For example, Pure Blend Pro Grow can lower rainwater's pH to 3-4. Also, some of the formulas don't supply enough calcium.
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You are right about that. If I mix up to about 600tds or so in tap water, it goes from right around 7 down to about 4.7 - 5.0 One reason I prefer the GH Floranova series. Not near as big of a Ph swing and the plants do love it.

jacob
 
rainwater. if there's no rain or you run out of the stuff, tap water but left to steep / evaporate the chlorine.
 
Thanks, tap water it is. I was really getting sick of paying $.99 cents/gallon for that stuff. So as long as I let it sit out, cap off I'm good to go so the chlorine can evaporate? Great info, thanks again to all.
 
I always use regular tap water and my plants have suffered no consequences as a direct result of it. I would think distilled should only be used when the extra nutrients and additives (like chlorine) are fatal to the plant, and in my experience they are not. If you were talking about some carnivorous plant, then I would say yeah--definitely use distilled or reverse-osmosis water, but for peppers, it's unlikely to "hurt" them and the additional nutrients would probably actually help them. IMO, rainwater is the next best thing, which is often not a problem when the plants are out in the yard and it rains regularly, but IMO there's no point in collecting it for later use; tap water seems to do just about as well.
 
I get my water from two sources: the hose and the sky. Unless you have some really bad water, municipal water is fine for peppers.
 
UltraZelda64 said:
IMO, rainwater is the next best thing, which is often not a problem when the plants are out in the yard and it rains regularly, but IMO there's no point in collecting it for later use; tap water seems to do just about as well.
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I always get a perk from the plants with rain water, not with tap water. Tap water works, but rain water is better for the plants, and free too. Not a huge cost with tap water especially for only a few plants, but free is always better.

jacob
 
I also use aerated compost tea. I mix it in my rain water or tap water. Makes a helluva diffierence, for the plants and the soil.
 
There is not much difference between distilled and RO water. I'll only drink RO water here, but I have too many plants to use it for watering during the dry season. Both remove almost everything from the water. My tap water is 7.68 ph, so it's not really great. I add vinegar (2 tbsp./gal) if I use it to water plants.
I've been using rain water exclusively for the last 5 months as we've had one hell of a rainy season this year. There is a marked difference in the plants when compared to our village water. Cheers.
 
jjs7741 said:
I always get a perk from the plants with rain water, not with tap water. Tap water works, but rain water is better for the plants, and free too. Not a huge cost with tap water especially for only a few plants, but free is always better.

jacob
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Yes, I noticed that as well. Notice my wording, that tap water is the "next best thing" and that it works "just about" as well. Not quite, but close. :) The reason you mention is exactly why I worded it that way: my plants out in the garden seem to get growth spurts after a nice rain that they otherwise don't seem to get with plain tap water. But other than that, it doesn't seem to really make a difference.

I'm not sure if it's something to do with the water itself, or the fact that the plants get more thoroughly watered when it rains than they do when I do a quick watering with the watering can. I honestly have a feeling the duration of water (several minutes of evenly-spread rain vs. less than a minute drench with a watering can) has something to do with it, but some people in another thread on this forum brought up a good point: it could be that the rain is more acidic, unlocking extra nutrients to be used by the plants, or possibly the ionization of the water. But still, my local water is practically neutral in pH, so I wouldn't think it'd have that much of a difference, provided the pH of the soil is a bit lower. Another thing I'm thinking is, if it rains the sun's not out... therefore more of it is absorbed and used by the plants. If you water the plants on a hot and relatively sunny day, a lot of it evaporates. Even if the sun is not beating on the plants yet.

Ironically, all of my plants on the porch seemed to go through the same bursts of growth every couple days without ever getting any rainwater (and no fertilizer whatsoever until the beginning of July), while it seems that the plants in the garden seem to have their spurts only after a good, heavy rain. So I don't know... I think there may be a bit more to it. I also more thoroughly water the soil in the pots, simply because it's easier to do with just a watering can (no outside hose at this dump). But I watered the plants on the porch about every day or two, and the growth spurts were every 3-4 days... so really, I just think it's up to the plants. They seem to do whatever they wanna do.
 
Thought I might chime in about tap water...the guy at the local hydroponic/organic supply store (aka weed growers supply store) brought to my attention that the municipal water in my area is treated with chloramine, which does not evaporate like chlorine. He also told me that buying Promix BX was a waste of money if you use tap water because the chloramine/chlorine kills the beneficial mychorrhiza added to the mix, but I liked the quality of the mix over other brands, so I bought it anyway.

I much prefer to let mother nature do the watering, but that is not always an option, especially with the dry summer this year. One day I will have my own place and make a rain barrel or two, but until then, tap water it is.
 
Not sure if you guys using tap water has ever checked out your cities water report, but here in Cali water is scarce and because of the large amount of people in the state it's treated with horrible chemicals and we even use reclaimed water from ALL sources. Luckily I keep a large fresh water fish tank and in order to keep the fish happy I need to replace about 10 gallons of water in the tank each week. The water going into the tank goes through a 3 stage filter first where a lot of the chemicals are removed and then I add water treatments to the fish tank directly to remove the rest. When I need to water my plants I syphon out about 5 gallons at a time and water the plants with that water. The added bonus is fish tank water has a lot of beneficial bacteria so it's a plus for the plants.

Here are a few chemicals that are found in my local water report.

Uranium
Arsenic
Chloride
Sulfate
Boron
Vanadium
Chlorine
Copper
Lead
 
Pro-mix worked great for many years before they added any mychorrhiza to the mix so I wouldn't worry too much about that, I'd worry more about killing all the beneficial microbes in the soil.
My preference is well water which seems to contain just enough calcium, magnesium, and other minerals for my needs, but I also use rainwater which I collect in several different locations around my property
In my opinion, forget the distilled or R/O water unless you have known water problems.
 
Here's my water report, don't know what the hell any of it means:

Barium .0498 .02362-.0498 ppm 2 2 No Drilling waste discharge; metal refinery discharge; erosion of natural deposits.
Chlorine .8 .3-.8 ppm 4 4 No Water additive to control microbes.
Copper .30 n/a ppm 1.3 1.3 No Erosion of natural deposits or corrosion of household plumbing.
Di (2-ethylhexyl)phthalate.8957 .8957-.8957
ppb 0 6 No Discharge from rubber and chemicalfactories.
Fluoride 1.2 1.12-1.2 ppm 4 4 No Erosion of natural deposits; wateradditive; discharge from factories.
Gross Alpha 22.6 22.03-22.6
pCi/L 0 15 No Erosion of natural deposits.
Haloacetic Acids 12.1 1.2-12.1 ppb n/a 60 No By-product of drinking water chlorination.
Iron .9735 0-0.9735
ppm n/a 1 No Erosion of natural deposits.
Lead 12 n/a ppb 0 15 No Erosion of natural deposits orcorrosion of household plumbing.
CombinedRadium 226/228 12 12-12 pCi/L 0 5 No Erosion of natural deposits.
Sodium 99730 34870-99730
ppm n/a n/a No Erosion of natural deposits; used inwater softener regeneration.
TotalTrihalomethanes 20 3.8-20 ppb n/a 80 No By-product of drinking water chlorination.
Uranium .8493 .8493-.8493
ug/l 0 30 No Erosion of natural deposits.
 
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