A lot of people mention how it can be so easy to grow, you “just add water.”
But it’s not that simple, is it? What do YOU do with your local tap water? Do you have to do anything, or is it really as easy as “just add water?” What special tricks, tips, or stuff do you use to make your water amenable?
EDIT: Vernal made a good point about chloramine/chlorine not being present at relevant concentrations in tap water for plant purposes. I guess I took for granted the garden hearsay about chloramine in water having to be dealt with.
Mostly, it seems that pH and excess salts are the problem. Which can generally be fixed by the proper application of acid. More below!
I had just been wondering yesterday why I even added the humics n humates, cause for the life of me I could not remember what it does.
And a week before I had been wondering how going halfsies on my tap with rain water went from being not enough to combat burnt tips, to generally being plenty to combat burnt tips.
Thanks!
So, what I do, is add “Ancient Earth” by Advanced Nutrients (OMRI organic line) to my tap water, almost every watering, just like I add nutrients almost every watering. According to the bottle it’s humic acids n humates.
Though I have this vague memory of reading somewhere Autoflowers don’t like too much humates…? Could be wrong though, real vague on that part.
My tap water has chloramine in it and the plants don’t care. My first grow was a monster and didn’t care it was tap water. Since then I’ve gotten fancy and try to use spring water when I can but if I have to use a gallon of tap water here and there I have zero concerns (and neither do the plants).
I have 5 gallon buckets I fill and not use for 24 hours. It allows the chlorine to evaproate.
If you’re doing organics it’s all about trying to not kill off the microbes. But, as you can see, it’s not that big of a problem. I just gas off my water because I don’t want chlorine in my mix.
I think 99% of burnt tips you see is an indicator that you are right at the edge of over feeding nitrogen. Lots of people will push their nutes until they get burnt tips. It’s sort of an indicator that your nutes are about as high as you want to use. That’s what I’ve heard for about 10 years.
Chlorine off-gasses rapidly…it can be a matter of hours. Plants actually need SOME chlorine, it is a micronutrient. Chloramine lingers longer but doesn’t seem to be problematic. People drink it every day, no evidence suggesting it’s dangerous or bad for plants in tapwater concentrations.
yet even all houseplants that are given tapwater get burnt tips, and they are never, I repeat NEVER given ANY nutrients whatsoever here. They just go in their organic potting soil and look healthy when you give them rainwater without nutes yet will get burnt tips when given from the tap, still without any nutes, in the same soil.
I can go and take pics of my houseplants right now, it’s a mess tbh and it’s not because of nutes.
You are not listening…I am telling you I have been watering the same plants with chlorinated hard water and nutrients for 5+ years now. Heck, I have a rubber tree plant I found a cutting of in a dumpster, rooted it, and I’ve had it for 4 years. It’s 7 feet tall and I’ve had to cut it a dozen times. Ultra hard pool-smelling chlorinated water from day one. I have mother plants a year old that have had nothing but chlorinated tapwater since they were seeds.
So, obviously, it is not the chlorine that is your issue.
The ph of my tap water is 8 and it has like 250ppm. I let the water sit overnight before using it, if I can remember (I forget half the time) Add what you want, pH down and done.
My city uses chlorine and I have a water filter system with this filter. The difference in from in to out is like 20ppm. It removes the taste and odor of chlorine and you definitely can taste the difference, but I didn’t notice a change in the plants. It’s more for myself than for the plants. The letting it sit part is most likely an overkill too but it’s easy and cost nothing…
I’m all for comparing notes, so I’ve searched around a bit for my place of residence. Let’s see…
Hardness German units: 12 °D
conductivity: 875µS/cm
aluminum: 31mg/liter
arsenic: 3.9µg/liter
boron: 0,34 mg/liter
calcium: 41,5 mg/liter
chlorate: 34µg/liter
free chloric residues: 340µg/liter
fluorde: 1.1 mg/liter
iron: 227µg/liter
magnesium: 9,5mg/liter
nitrate: 17mg/liter
nitrate/nitrite VL: 0.34
nitrite: 0 mg/liter
sodium: 192 mg/liter
sulfate: 95 mg/liter
zinc: 138µg/liter
Don’t know if that would correlate to my tap but that’s what I could find for my POR
I also found out drinking and using for cooking water from the water heater is actually not good for you. Apparently you’re supposed to use cold water and heat it on the stove cause the water from the boiler has lost it’s healthy properties and has gained a few bad ones from getting heated and kept inside the boiler.
edit: did a pH strip just now and best I can tell it’s a 7 on the dot.
I’ve done strip tests before and as far as I can remember it’s always been 7.
