Tapwater in Mesa *noob here*

Anyone using tapwater in their hydroponics?
If so have you ran into any issues?
What nutrients are you running?

you will run in to issues if you are using water right from the tap to the system you are using buy r/o water

I use tap water all the time, I let it set 24hrs before using to allow chlorine to evaporate use GH Flora series nutes and ph after mixing, no problems.

I don't use tap. If you do though let it sit 24 hrs so the chlorine evaporates

Read a City of Mesa water report and first try to determine if the source of water you are getting is consistent at all, or even get it analyzed. It's better to get this done than to lose something you spend money on. Everyone in different parts of the city gets their water from different wells, canals, so it's gonna be a real crapshoot as to what you have. Your well water might be fine, or you might be getting really high Calcium/Mag/Fe/Zn levels and causing major lockout... Straight RO is a great way to flush your plants of salts during the finishing stages (for those that feel they need to), but also a great way to strip your plant of some vital minerals it needs during the growth cycle. Be careful about watering straight RO.

A better solution would be to get an R/O system, or purchase R/O at the store and use it in conjunction with your tap 2 parts RO to 1 part tap, which will take care of most "hard" waters without making them completely void of minerals.

Also, contact the city of Mesa or check your most recent local water report to find out if your water is chlorinated, or being cleaned with CHLORAMINE. Never use water with Chloramine, unless you buy the proper products to remove it. Water with chlorine is fine to use, if you take care to dechlorinate it as much as possible. There are many ways to dechlorinate water, which is why it's not an issue.

Sorry for the lengthy answer, hopefully that helps.

you can use tap water with hydro. bottom line. yes r/o water would be better, but if you dont want to invest in an r/o system or lug jugs around like me, you can use tap water just fine. imo and experience the only thing to really watch for is calcium/salt buildup on your emitters and medium. i used tap water and botanicare cns17 through a whole grow with no adverse effects, just crusty topsoil. (however, if you are an aficianado, you might argue that chlorine and deposits could effect the taste of meds, i couldnt tell)

our water may be stored in canals or who knows where but it all goes through a water treatment center before it goes in the pipes, and its all treated with chlorine and chloramines. you can use tap water even if it doesn't sit first, chlorine isn't going to hurt your plant, it may not have grown to its full potential, but you'd never know. most of us never let our plants get big enough to see "full potential" anyway and full potential only exists under true sunlight, so don't worry about itty bitty chlorine.

organic and veganic gardeners stay away from chlorine and chloramines because it kills all the beneficial organisms we need to breakdown the organic matter we use to feed our plants, but in a hydro setup, you have no beneficials to kill i would use r/o if you can just to help your system stay cleaner, plus its nice to know whats in there (or whats not in there). I used r/o water(40ppm) through my last grow because i paid a lot of money for my house and garden lineup (claims to be the cleanest available lineup) and it didn't make sense to me to dirty it up with my tap water(840ppm) r/o water will also need to a cal/mag supplement

Tap all day! RO water for last week!

I plan to invest in a reverse osmosis filtration system soon myself. Currently I am just using well water though which seems to be perfectly fine, less shit than is in the public water system.

My buddies who live in town go fill their jugs of water though rather than using tap water. If you have one close, it is rather inexpensive to fill up your jugs.

st0ned said:

I plan to invest in a reverse osmosis filtration system soon myself. Currently I am just using well water though which seems to be perfectly fine, less shit than is in the public water system.

My buddies who live in town go fill their jugs of water though rather than using tap water. If you have one close, it is rather inexpensive to fill up your jugs.

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I used to do that shit before I bought the R/O system it wasnt so bad except in the summer and it wasnt that expensive I would fill up six 5 gallon jugs for about 10 bucks... Word of the wise DO NOT BUY A R/O system from home depot.. Buy one thats meant for hydroponics. The ones at home depot work just as well and are fine for drinking water, but they only allow you anywhere from 15-30 gallons a day. Also please realize that most R/O units have a waste ratio of 3:1 meaning you will have to put 3 gallons of unfiltered water down the drain to get one gallon of R/O water.. My pressure is about 60 psi and I get 30 gallons in about 6 hours.

Tap water from the dishwasher kit I installed under my bathroom sink. RO water is nice to have but it is not a necessity for growing. If you are new to this I would just use the KISS system. I would also start with soiless and not full on hydroponics if its your first grow. My father and I use Jacks classic as our base nutrients.

good luck trying to use tap water.... I had zero luck . . r/o = excellent results & room for my nutes in the water, kinda important ! (hydro)

I use tap in my hempys and soil, I use RO in my RDWC.

thank you all for the replys! its greatly appreciated

A little note about using tap water: the water sources for the Valley vary over the course of a year. Sometimes it's canal water, sometimes it's from wells- and the total dissolved solids (TDS) varies throughout the year.

So- it may work well at some point, and then later you'll find out that it's not working quite so well.

However, much of the total dissolved salts found in the tap water here consists of calcium and magnesium- which some people pay more for in the form of CalMag at the hydro store. Other components (sulfate, iron, carbonate) are also used by plants. The chloride isn't needed by plants, but won't harm them except in very high concentrations.

While the tap water here can be very "hard," it's not necessarily detrimental to plants unless one allows the salts to build up for too long. The pros will go with an RO unit, of course, since the extra money is worth it for labor- and energy-intensive crops.

I average between 330 & 420 ppm with my tap water in Glendale & had nothing but headaches until switching to SMALL BOY R/O unit.

YThor said:

A little note about using tap water: the water sources for the Valley vary over the course of a year. Sometimes it's canal water, sometimes it's from wells- and the total dissolved solids (TDS) varies throughout the year.

So- it may work well at some point, and then later you'll find out that it's not working quite so well.

However, much of the total dissolved salts found in the tap water here consists of calcium and magnesium- which some people pay more for in the form of CalMag at the hydro store. Other components (sulfate, iron, carbonate) are also used by plants. The chloride isn't needed by plants, but won't harm them except in very high concentrations.

While the tap water here can be very "hard," it's not necessarily detrimental to plants unless one allows the salts to build up for too long. The pros will go with an RO unit, of course, since the extra money is worth it for labor- and energy-intensive crops.

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Here's to a real answer from someone who has done their homework... kudos.

Yeah great answer. I still use RO and will until I drink the tap water here myself. RO gives me a clean slate that I can mix up my own nutrient solutions with the proper ratios. That's great that tap water has so much Cal mag in it but I don't like that much and I want to know exactly how much is available to my plants. If you know what you are doing, then the more control you have over your environment the better. If you are not really sure what you are doing then it wont matter.

irieie said:

Yeah great answer. I still use RO and will until I drink the tap water here myself. RO gives me a clean slate that I can mix up my own nutrient solutions with the proper ratios. That's great that tap water has so much Cal mag in it but I don't like that much and I want to know exactly how much is available to my plants. If you know what you are doing, then the more control you have over your environment the better. If you are not really sure what you are doing then it wont matter.

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Not only that but every hydroponic nutrient company tests their products using R/O water @ 0 PPM.. You can get deionized R/O systems ( 4 stage R/O systems) to get you 0 PPM. So if you follow nutrient calculators or the manufacturers directions remember that they ran their tests with 0 ppm water.