Well you can test your tap water to see how bad it is. You could test yourself with a ph meter and a tds meter. Alternatively, you can probably bring a bottle of your tap water into a pet store or even a place that sells pools/jacuzzi's and ask them to test it for you. Again, your looking for its purity and PH which are most important. Finally, it may be best just grabbing a good PH and TDS tester, since you'll probably need it anyway.
Rain water would be an option, however you'd have to gather a lot of water (and rely on mother nature to supply it) - you'd also have to store it so it wouldn't become contaminated. Stream water is a bad idea unless you filtered it and ensured you were killing all of the bacteria in it. Do you have a dehumidifier? If you did, and you cleaned it *very* well (hospital clean), you could use water from it as its essentially distilled water. Finally, you could probably distill it relatively easily if you were careful and good with your hands. You basically boil water and condense the evaporation. I found this link for you, its a start Best Way - DIY: Water Distiller | eHow.com Last note: No matter what, you'll still need to PH test it if you want the best results. I believe distilled water has a PH of around 5.6 and rain a PH of about 5.2
I buy reverse osmosis water. I have 5 plants outdoors now, and water monday wednesday and friday. 1 gallon per plant per watering, and it costs me $1.25 to fill up a 5 gallon water jug at the water machines in front of grocery stores in town. I spend $3.75 a week on watering with RO water, which i don't feel is bad at all to be spending, considering the price of a filter, and then the replacements for the filter.
nope, the reverse osmosis process removes chlorine, and essentially, it is the same water you buy from the store that is already bottled up, but you just supply the bottles. and is much cheaper, and better for the environment with you re using your containers
When I can afford to I get RO water at Safeway, suprisingly their cheaper per gallon then Wal Mart. Havent tried seeing if the local pet stores that sell aqurium supplys sells any.
How was this bad advice? Seriously, your talking between $100-$200 at home depot for an easy to install water filtration system. I paid $250 for my RO water system, and could have paid as little as $150 if I would have gone with an older model. Water filtration systems were even cheaper. You're worried about the quality of your water, say buying it is to expensive, yet use a filter is silly advice? As for your tap water, you should be able to find a report on your PPM's etc... its supposed to be common kmowledge. I don't know about soil, but for Hydro you definately want a PPM meter, and for both you NEED a PH meter, so you can use those to check the water. But seriously, look into water filtration. Remember, what you put into your grow, depends on what you get out. Same as using a desklamp compared to real lighting, good water/understanding your water will help you produce.
Just know a RO system uses a LOT of waste water. I'm talking 10 gallons of waster per gallon of good water. Myself thought this was a bit much, so fuck building code, I fill 5 gallon buckets with my waste and use that shit for laundry and watering my outside plants. When I called the company and asked about the waste water (Thought something was wrong) they told me I'd still save money over buying bottled water BTW, and I believe just wasting the water is still better than polluting the enviroment with plastic bottles everyday, if you're concerned about that.
I rate the cheapest and easiest option is to get a filter that fits onto your tap. Its not the BEST filter though. Another option is to get a filter jug. Pour the water in there 1st to clean water. Again, it aint the BEST way, but RO systems can be pricey. The cheapest way would be to possibly full a bucket of water, let it sit still in there for a few days, giving it time for the chlorine to evaporate and also keep it out of direct sunlight. After the few days, pour the water in a pot and put over a stove to boil or even in a kettle. This will kill any bacteria present in the water of course. It works very well, but requires alot of labour and waiting.
I dunno, this to me sounding a little sarcastic and he was blowing him off after toasty bizz suggested using a water filter. Internet, words on paper, maybe I read it wrong, but it sounded like he was just blowing off the advice of using filtered water.
Well, a couple more factors to toss in there: Britta filters are standard chemical/mechanical filtration systems. Mechanical in that they filter particles. Chemical in that they contain carbon filters to remove impurities. Key point on this one is that they require frequent cartridge replacement to remain affective. No matter your choice, you will be far better off to grab a TDS and PH tester. This can give you an idea on where your at with your tap water. Not everyone has bad tap water! I'm pretty fortunate with a deep ass well on my property which gives me 20ppm water -- so you'll never know unless you test it! On a side note, next grow I'm going to run an experiment to see exactly how bad my non-ph'd water does on a test plant (bagseed of course). PH out of the well comes in at 6.5. The reason why I want to test this is because I truly believe there is something unique in our water here. Everyone in my neighborhood has beautiful grass, overgrowing landscaping - everyone raves about it. Guy across the street from me planted bananas last year, and the plants are literally about 20 feet tall this year - he does nothing but let them get rained on...