I'm about to start my first ever hydroponic grow and I've been taking measurements of the PH and PPM of my water. I live in the country so all the water for my grow would be supplied by a well...and the water quality is shit. My PH is off the charts. 9+. But that's not the real problem. I can control that well enough using PH Down. What worries me is the PPM. I recently bought a TDS meter and took a reading and it was a resounding 912! That's before adding a single ounce of nutrients into the water. My landlord tells me he has had the water tested and its very high in both sodium and iron. In fact, there's so much iron in the water that's it looks kind of orange. I can't haul in water and I don't think an RO system is possible because I have pretty crappy water pressure. I think RO systems require a minimum PSI to work...I may be wrong on that. What kind of problems can I look forward to? And is there any way to work around this problem?
If its a small scale grow try a brita water pitcher or something like that. Journal: http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1290525-400w-MH/HPS-mixed
It's well water dude. High ppm is a given. Better start collecting rain water or buying jugs from the store.
@[member="CanadianKodiak"] You are correct. R/O units do require a certain PSI to operate. I have a simple small home unit and mine requires 40-80 psi to operate. Any way you can check your PSI? Another option if you live in a humid area is to run a dehumidifier and collect the runoff which is basically like distilled water. I have a friend who uses this method in his closed off growroom with no fresh air exchange in the room, just CO2. Do you live in a coastal region? You also need to remember the relation between pH and KH (carbonate hardness)/GH (general hardness). The calcium carbonate(KH) acts as a pH buffer. The higher your KH the harder it is to adjust your pH and the more ph down you will have to use. We once attributed funny tasting bud a friend had grown to this from all the pH down he had to use. We had no way of testing that, it was just stoner theory.
Fear not, there are pressure assist pumps for just this problem and they don't use any power. http://www.reverseosmosis.com/products/Aquatech-Permeate-Pump-1%7B47%7D4%22.html Worst case, they have powered ones also. Browse that site in the link.
Thanks for the help guys. The problem with hauling in water is my reservoir is a total of about 60 gallons and it would take a whack of time, money and effort to keep it topped up. Yesterday, I hauled in 15 gallons of RO water and mixed it with my super high PPM crappy well water to bring down the PPM levels in my 30 gallon reservoir. It worked pretty good. So for now, I think I'll just haul in a few gallons and dilute my well water with it. When/if that begins to fail me I'll look into that pump to increase PSI and buy myself an RO system. Thanks again, you guys frikn rock!