PPM's Reverse Osmosis, Distilled or Tap?

@Covertgrower Hey trying to get water ready for nutes and ran into a big problem. my tap water is 1200 ppm according to my apera fc60. This was already aired out. i have my ph at 5.5. Now i didnt wash the sensor in distilled before taking a reading but. What are my options need to get butrients ready its about thst time. thx

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@DankGunslinger just take your 1200 ppm reading and make that number your base.
So if you add your nutrients and you get 2400 ppm, so your total nutrients should be 1200. 1200 is your nutrient solution and 1200 for your base. As long as you remember the base number and account for it, you’re good.

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You should rinse your pH meter w/ distilled, just don’t store in distilled. Always check your pH meter against standards before use.

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ok will do. Ill retake the reading with distilled.

@Covertgrower I thought you couldnt be that high. Confused.

What’s the question?
If you have 0 PPM water, and add nutrients to 1,000 PPM. That’s 1,000 ppm.
If your water with out nutrients is 500 ppm, and you add nutrients to it you get 1500 ppm.
500 is stil included as in your 1500 number. But you know you’ve added 1,000. For the record I actually wasn’t medicated that post. Lol
@DankGunslinger

You could have any amount of nutrients and get any number you want. I was only using 1,000 as a reference number for the amount of nutrients added.

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But I thought your ppm has to be under a couple hundred.Youre saying my tap water ppm at 1.2k isnt too high before adding nutrients?

It doesn’t matter what the PPM coming out of the tap is. As long as you only add only 200 PPM in nutrients. @DankGunslinger

If your tap water is 1200 PPM, it has lots of things like calcium, lime, and iron dissolved in it. But none of those are going be nitrogen which will make it grow.

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@DankGunslinger

Sorry to be dense Im kinda buzzed currently so be gentle. so for my young plants add 5-600 ppm of nutes?

Depends on the age @DankGunslinger

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this will be their first feeding they still have the round leaves although they are yellowed.


and they are now transplanted.

@kw_Bat sorry didnt mean to hijack your thread. @Covertgrower Im gonna use distilled water and take a reading again I did check the apera calibration and it seemed on point. Im gonna reread this post. But I guess I understood this as my ppm of my tap water is no good above a certain amount. My question is why do reverse osmosis if the ppm doesnt matter? Once again sorry for the posts just trying to keep heading down the right path. And as you all already know this is an easy venture to lose money in Im just trying to get the most out of it.

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It doesn’t matter, but it’s easier to do math while medicated… :joy: especially with 0 ppm, and then you’re just adding nutrients.

Start with 200-400 PPM for a plant about that size. @DankGunslinger

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So make my water 1600 ppm with nutes factored in?

Correct @DankGunslinger

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Sorry to be a bonehead. I appreciate your help. honestly of all of this the nutes and ph etc have been my biggest worry.

@DankGunslinger no worries. As long as I helped, and you got it now. This forum is here for a reason and everyone wants to help.

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If your tap water is so high in PPM you should get it tested.

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yeah thats what I was thinking. Gonna retest it now.