Just asking a question – since hard water is softened with salt can this water be used for our ladies ?
I say not because of the salt and potential for buildup - what say the other guru’s here?
MotaMan
2 Likes
I remember reading that you can’t use salt softened water it will essentially cause the plants to die of thirst because of the salt
1 Like
Softened water kills plants. Hose plants, trees and just about any plant you got growing in your yard unless they are salt tolerant plants like the one that grow near the beach. Sometimes takes years to kill trees and shrubbery.
2 Likes
Thanks fellow growers and gurus – I had addressed this as being a possible problem that my cousin has with her indoor grow – . So all she’ll have to do is tap off before the softener unit and no salt, just add nutes and PH the water…
Here’s Mint Chocolate Chip from 2018 seed – 6 weeks
Happy Grow
MotaMan
6 Likes
The topic of this thread is a question I have asked several times. Not as a separate topic though. I’ve been using softened water for over two years. Its baseline ppm is 180 ±. Truthfully I do not know if it accumulates to the point it harms the plants. When I used soil I did have to flush and I paid close attention to runoff PH and PPM. I year ago I switched to coco and Jack’s 321. I use it in autopots and top fed plants. With the top fed plants I feed enough to have have good runoff volumes. With autopots that is not possible. I think there is a reasonable possibility that the softened water may impact these plants.
I am thinking of a couple options.
One is to use potassium chloride as the softening agent rather than sodium chloride.
Another option, in autopots in particular, is to occasionally use distilled water. This grow I will only have two plants in autopots. Buying a few gallons of distilled water here and there is not a big deal.
I should also mention as the seasons and humidity dictates I run two dehumidifiers. I mix this dehumidified water with the softened tap water.
Of course another option is to install a RO system. Our laundry room is close and the source of the tap water I use. I could put one there attached to the faucet. My problem is I hate any sort of plumbing task. No matter how simple or small. Pathetic I know but that is why I have not done it already.
1 Like
I use softened, but I also use RO Buddy. My softener has a bypass valve, so I measured ppm’s of softened water and water straight from the tap without running through RO Buddy first. There was no discernable difference in ppm’s, so if you have a TDS meter check ppm’s of water, softened and water not softened. See if there’s a increase in total dissolved solids between softened and straight tap.
Using potassium in the softener is the best way to go but you have to start with it. Changing to potassium after you’ve been using regular salt will take forever to clear out all the salt in the resin tank. Most houses with softeners have the outside hose bibs tied in before the softener. The houses that don’t have a softener loop plumbed in. We recommend they only use potassium. It’s more expensive, like 4x but it won’t kill your plants.
3 Likes
It’s the salt molecule that is the problem I believe – somewhere I’ve read that the molecule is to large to be passed / absorbed by those tiny tiny root hairs and hence accumulation at the hair… Salt is Salt whether introduced through a softener or a nutrient supplement I would tend to believe.
I’m asking cause this can only be the reason my cousin is experiencing failures and low yields – her only difference is the softened water where she lives…
MotaMan
2 Likes
She needs to find a different source of water and see if things improve. She can put the softener on bypass then run water for 10 minutes to get the softened water out of the system then use that water
1 Like
She had thought that she was overfertilizing – which could be true due to salt being introduced by nute and water - two sources – not one diluted by another but another saturation increased by another salt source.
Personally I just started using a topical additive “Lands Pride” for a fertilizer. In the past I would just rely on the strength of the soil and then add nutes only in bloom with a high phosphorous content nute.
A tap before the softener would be an alternative –
Happy Growing
MotaMan
1 Like