I bought these hth 6-way test strips from wally world. 50 pack They test the total hardness, free chlorine ppm, ph, total alkalinity ppm, and the cyanuric acid ppm i've been using tap water, and lowering the ph. I just noticed when i tested the tap water before i ph downed it, that the alkalinity ppm is reading passed the highest color square on the chart it provides, which is 240, my strip is greener than the 240 ppm square. What does this mean to me and my plants? My total hardness measure between 0-100 the first two color squares on the chart, the color of my stripe is between those two. my free chlorine is at 0, and my cyanuric acid ppm, is around the 30-50 mark. the ph that comes outta the sink is around 8.0 -8.5 my main questions are about the alkalinity and cyanuric acid ppms..
at the cheapest possible solution... get a pur water pitcher, filter the water from your sink with it and store it in a jug every so often.... it's a pain in the ass way to do it but it works... alternatively you could get a reverse osmosis system for $250 or so... look for the nice 4-7 step systems... or purchase bottled water...
is there anyway i can just setup a water pump, and one of those long round carbon water filters, and just pump water through the damn thing?
yea, you could... it wouldn't be as good as the pur water pitcher trick... and it'd be more expensive... and it'd be infinitely better to get the RO system if you wanted to do it RIGHT... but it might help haha
what about doing this, but i'd be taking a store 5 gal water container, cutting the end off like an inch from the bottom, and putting that brita filter in the end, and putting it upside down to drain into another 5 gal water container like you buy from the store. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpuKPG4a_yQ&feature=related]YouTube - Homemade Water Filter Setup[/ame] heres a video i just found, i would then just have to buy a few of those filters, i think you can only run so many gallons through them before they become useless.
I just got done filtering my first batch of tap water, for the most part the same way in that video i posted. I tested it, the relative ph is a bit lower, but the alkalinity ppms are still really high. Whats up???
you may just live an area with shitty water... there's RO systems, bottled water, and those big jugs.... it may not be so bad after the filter... i'd do a test batch with it before i invested in actually clean water for sure...