Everyday I dump about 50 pints of water which is a little over 6 gallon of water today I tested the water and it was 44 ppm could I just use this water for watering the plants? I usually buy distilled or pure water? Thanks
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@weedify As long as you’re adjusting your PH before using, it’s perfectly acceptable to use this water instead of dumping it.
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You can use it. May want to consider treating it like RO water and supplementing it with calmag.
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This question seems to have come up multiple times.
Now that I’m the new owner of a 70pint Fridgidaire dehumidifier I’ve begun wondering the same thing. I tested the condensate today for ppms, and it read 3ppm. That seems pretty clean.
I did a bunch of reading with the google machine and it turned up a lot of mixed results. The majority of negative opinions were based on heavy metals leaching from the equipment, and things growing in the tank. This article stood out, and convinced me to try it.
It’s all new and spotless. I’ll bleach the tank before using, and every week or so, not to mention regularly cleaning the filter and testing the water for ppms.
I’m assuming it’s basically the same as distilled without the germ killing boil part.
I grow in soil, and use earth juice nutes, so I’m damn close to being organic.
Any informed opinions?
@garrigan62 @dbrn32 @MattyBear @Countryboyjvd1971
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I have been using the water from my dehumidifier on my plants for four grows without any issues. It is essentially distilled water. I normally add cal/mag even on non-feeding days when using dehumidifier water. This water has no buffers, pH swings will be dramatic if you are too aggressive with pH UP/DOWN.
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I’m trying to get away from using pH up/down of any sort. Since it’s basically r/o I’d assume to be using it as is (except maybe with cal-mag). I was about to buy an r/o buddy, but the waste water irks me.
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I haven’t used it, but that’s because I had mine setup to drain directly into my sump pit.
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I had it draining into the sewer, but now a bucket. 
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Might I suggest that you use either:
- H2O2 (Hydrogen Perodide), or
- ClO2 (Chlorine Dioxide in solution)
rather than Chlorine bleach. Both are better at killing mold, et al. And not as risky to your plants.
ClO2 gas by the way is a great way to kill mold, et al. and eliminate odors in your grow room after a good wipe-down between grows. It gets in all the nooks and crannies and you can then exhaust the remnants through your exhaust/filter after the dwell time expires.
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Good point on the bleach. H2o2 is a much better idea. Thank you.
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Follow up.
I switched to the RO buddy. Safer and more reliable. Plus it’s cheap.
I just did as well, so far very pleased with it. PH usually reads around 5PPM’s. As @merlin44 said, the PH swings are dramatic. Even a miniscule amount of PH UP can send the numbers way over the high limits
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Your can’t really measure pH of RO/distilled water. With a ppm of 5 (mine goes from 3-6 ppm as the filters age) there’s just not enough of anything in there to measure it.
True, but I know where I am starting from. I have been mixing nutes, supplements and what not and then it becomes easier to measure. It still only takes a miniscule amount of PH up, and anything over that, it screws it up, and here comes the PH down, lol.