Guest Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Ive realised after 3 months of growing in coco, hand watered that our local rain water has a ph of 8 and an ec of zero The tap water ph 7.4 ec 0.5 It seems to make sense to use the rainwater to allow more usable nutrients per watering? If I continue doing this, i realise that i need to keep the stored rainwater conditioned properly, and will need to bubble it and maybe uv it Would this be sufficient? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jacks lad Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 have no idea about ec, i started growing in coco last year using tap water, plants started going down hill halfway through veg, i looked online about growing in coco and came across the differance between hard and soft water, soft water has no cal/mag and rain water is soft, picks up the cal/mag while traveling through the ground becoming hard water, solved a long time problem, i now use cal/mag every watering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoD Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Ive realised after 3 months of growing in coco, hand watered that our local rain water has a ph of 8 and an ec of zero The tap water ph 7.4 ec 0.5 It seems to make sense to use the rainwater to allow more usable nutrients per watering? If I continue doing this, i realise that i need to keep the stored rainwater conditioned properly, and will need to bubble it and maybe uv it Would this be sufficient? Cheers Hey bro, I'd double check your testing equipment as there is no way that your rain is coming in at ph8 and zero EC. Somethings gone wrong with your measurements for sure. Natural rain in the uk comes in about ph 5.6 and contains a number of dissolved substances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Hi@@SoD thanks, yeah i kno it sounds strange. Will check the calibration on the ph pen this avo @ thanks for the reply. Ive had similar experience with things lookin shit during veg on some plants Im also using a little magnecal even tho its hard water, findin my way, tryin to understand the needs of weeds i would like to know how people look after harvested rainwater for plants grown indoors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 @@SoD yes checked the calibration of the ph pen is reliable to + or - 0.2 The rain water in the galvanised steel dustbin is presently 7.4 Rain water in the plastic water butt is 6.1 Tap water is 7 today and generally measured at 6.8 to 7.2 I guess the metal could add to the ph measured My blue lab truncheon seems reliable and shows zero in the rainwater Anyone uv ing stored rain water, or would bubbling alone keep it fresh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owderb Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 I grow indoors and I would never use rain water and bring it indoors. Its just asking for problems. Its never consistent for a start and you have no idea what pests could be in there Also I would never store water in a metal container If mine was really bad then I would go the RO route Owd 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embryo Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 @@Owderb many thanks thats saved me a whole lot of ****ing about buying crap and wasting time, cheers @@Embryo appreciate you guys takin the time to help Anyone please tell me what RO means? dog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimboo Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 reverse osmosis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awesomesauce Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 (edited) Water from the tap is so cheap though that I can't see the effort of using rain water worthwhile. If you are growing hydro then you can use the water tap to keep a constant flow. With rain water that might have interruptions. If you are hand watering and you don't want to spend money on mains water, then i guess it could be used within 5-7 days of being collected. Edited March 9, 2016 by awesomesauce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 @@awesomesauce hi thanks for your advice Yes, cheap enough at £1 a ton and good value, I don't mind the cost. I just noticed that the rainwater showed zero ec and I thought I saw an opportunity to provide more usable elements in the total ec level of the feed water I won't be using rainwater for any indoor plants following advice from top growers not to use it, too risky. I will very likely use rainwater on garden plants though I like to keep things simple, no hydro, handwatered only soil or coco grows, setting up filtering and pumps wouldn't suit me so I won't do the RO thing I use tap water left to stand for a day, covered, not bubbled Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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