Hey all, I am a decent enough grower to get my plants from seed to harvest with few if any problems.....with that said...living in Florida, esp this time of hear, I get ALOT of rain.....would it be worth it, or even make much of a difference, if I caught rain water to use for my plants instead of the tap water I have been using....which tests at average of 105ppm after sitting for 24 hours...............where as the rain water i just caught and tested came out to 5ppm....
Yes if you use live soil. No if you use bottle nutrients Letting it sit for 24 hours in an open container is to remove chlorine and this is a good idea when you're watering live soil because chlorine can cause unfavourable conditions for the bacteria and fungus in the soil. These microbes are needed to convert raw organic fertilisers in to nutrients that the plants are able to use. But if you're adding ready to go nutrients (nutrients that are already in form that plants can use) then the chlorine won't matter as those microbes won't be needed anyway Keep in mind that everyone's tap water will be different as we live all over the world but 100ppm is pretty pure
Yes, The very best thing I ever did was switch to distilled water. Too much trouble to buy. I make my own and that is a real hot power consuming bitch. But it's that good. So yes, try it, I doubt you will go back. Not sure if it applies to low ppm rainwater, but dipping a ph pen in distilled wears out the lens and the readings are about worthless anyways, so to save your pen, check after you have stabalized. I love that stuff. Let me know if you notice a difference. My roots would get limed up and lose their ability to take up calcium. More and more calmag, more needed each time. Now...what's calmag?
I am using bottled nutes.....fox farms trio for soil.....i would think rain water, with it being mother nature and all that good stuff, that it might have more......maybe micro-nutrients or something in there that my tap my not have....but thats just my mind after . While on the water topic....I remember reading a few places regarding something about......water buffer maybe....or how water will react more or less to a buffering agent depending on its ppm before you start??? Edit: you can SMELL the chlorine in my tap water...its pretty bad
I lost my Rain Barrel a few months ago. Well I didn't lose it so much as it was full of Algae and I didn't want to use it any more. I used tap water for my plant and am pretty sure it killed it. Letting it sit out is to evaporate Chlorine, but I'm pretty sure my city uses Chlorate, which doesn't evaporate out. (Edit) They use Chloramine. It still doesn't evaporate out. Anyway, I collect rain in a bucket now until I can afford a new rain barrel. BTW, never get a white Rain Barrel folks. We had Algae about a foot and a half deep in ours when we got rid of it.
No, rain water has much less. Its distilled, whatever ppm it has will come from dust particles its picked up on the way down and whatever gets in it when collecting Tap water picks up far more minerals as it flows through and over rocks, silt, sand, soil etc