Forumers, I've just recently come into a dilemma. It appears that the sink I currently have is unable to contain an R/O unit due to it's design, so I need to see other alternatives to good water for my sink. I have not yet tested my water, but I do recall before that it was sufficient for growing a baby plant to one leaf before dying away. I'm taking a look at various water options, and here is what I've seen so far. Installed R/O Water: The best of the best for hydroponics. This can make your water near 0ppm, and you can load it up with nutrients to balance it out and feed your plants appropriately. This also ensures no shortage of water, and from mere walking distance from your sink. Require's an installation of the unit inside your sink, unless you know a place to load up and bring it in (not ideal). Portable R/O Water: Ideal for RV's, apartments, etc where you cannot install a permanent RO Filter unit. After some research, it seems that this area of RO water filtration still has some ways to go before it is perfected, due to the sink faucet size variations as well as performance. A member of this forum says they work really great for our purposes, so it should not be a big issue. It's worth looking into. Distilled Water: Also 0ppm, it's purified to the point where there are no more minerals. The only con is that this needs to be bought from a store, which is not ideal for the hydro grower. Brita Filtered Water: Perfect for the human to drink, but for plants... it's a different matter due to the filter removes necessary minerals that the plant needs. This can be countered with chemicals. (Might be a hassle.) Tap water: I have yet to test mine, but I think I will soon. I mean, since I don't have R/O water, why not? It's all the water I have, and if it's from the sink... why not? My baby plant was able to grow using this water only up to one leaf, and it died due to different circumstances (not water). Are there any other viable options to obtain water, with minimal effort?
If you DO use tap water, you can boil it to remove any chlorine, and let it sit for out for at least 24 hours to make iti neutral. Thats what I've been doing, and everything is working so far.
Interesting idea, I'll have to look into this, will do so after this post. Do you have one, and for that matter, does anyone else have one and how does it perform? Yeah, that's one way of doing things but it's inconvenient. I'm looking to minimize that.
I have a multi-stage drinking water filter, not RO, hooked inline leading to my refrigerator, so the ice and the water dispenser are filtered. The filter itself doesn't have to go under the sink, it can go anywhere between the sink and the fridge.
That's true... but when you want to go hydroponics... you really need a lot of water. One option I've been considering lately is just to have a rubber tank that can hold 20 gallons and just go from there. Rumpleforeskin's bubble bucket (to give you perspective) needs about 1.5 gallons of water per day for a mature female. So I'll like to have easy access to that much available water. Ahh toasty biz! Hmm... can you clarify the type of filter it is? I mean, multi-stage drinking water filter? I've seen one of these in Home Depot and it sounds like it goes under the sink... almost akin to the RO system except without the bulge, unless I'm mistaken. The plumber just came in today and installed a Brita filter system on my sink after fixing a leak I told him about when I asked him to look at my sink for a possible RO unit installation. He's cool, though. To update on Portable RO filters, GrowBot has some experience with this and told me they work really great for growing purposes, so I'll take his word for it. He bought it off ebay so not sure on the model name, but I guess it's a hit or miss. First, though, I should test my own water.
That's exactly what I'm talking about, the kind you can get at Home Depot/Lowes/etc. Mine is under my sink, but my point was that it feeds to my refrigerator inline, so the filter could go anywhere between the water source and the fridge. you probably could mount it to the back of the fridge, for example, or set it up on top.