I got my water professionally tested. I don’t really know how to interpret the results in terms of what I should expect to need to do to it to use in my garden.
The quick story is I moved to a new house in March and this summer was my first time using the well water here for my container grown veggies and cannabis. Things went well this summer, no real issues. Things are going alright indoors now as well
Here’s the results of the water test - I’m interested to know what you’d do to this water if you were me and growing in living soil. This water runs through a water softener and a whole house carbon filter “for taste”
Treated
Mineral Water Analysis
Hardness 1.5 gpg. (1 Grain per gal = 17.1 mg/l) 0-4.38 gpg Soft, 4.39-8.77 gpg moderately hard, 8.78 -17.54 hard and over 17.55 is very hard . Hard water is “hard” to use, requiring more soap and cleaning products. Hard water scale builds up in pipes, water heaters and home appliances, severely reducing their efficiency.
Iron: .02 mg/1. Iron exceeding 0.3 mg/l. Iron is an essential element and does not generally cause health effects. High amounts of iron can cause staining of clothing, sinks, toilets and bathtubs. Iron can give water a metallic taste. The maximum level for iron in water is 0.3 mg/l.
Manganese: 0 mg/1. Manganese levels over 0.05 mg/l may lead to staining of clothing and grey/black on bathroom fixtures. Exposure to too much manganese over a long period of time could harm your nervous system. The Vermont Department of Health has a health advisory level for manganese of 0.3 mg/l to protect the nervous system.
PH: 8.0 Most natural waters have a pH in the range of 6.5 to 8. A pH below 7.0 indicates acid in the water, which may be corrosive to metal pipes.
TDS: 430 mg/l a test measuring the electrical conductivity provides an estimate of the total dissolved solids. A TDS reading above 500 exceeds the EPA maximum levels for drinking water.
I used to interpret this data as a living years ago…hard water good source of calcium. pH 8 you will need to adjust your feed water lower which will make more nutrients available. Best I can do on memory. There are a few online sites where you enter your data and it will let you know if it is safe for irrigation.
Where I come from some well water is like liquid rock!
@Deez Definitely pH the water down to pH 6.2-6.5 (I think that is the sweet spot) - I don’t have my notes in front of me from the helpful growers here. Powdered citric acid is cheap and will last a life time. My water is pH 7.2-7.4 and I used 1/4th of a quarter teaspoon to a gallon. Others use white vinegar.” Or a product called pH down. You probably have a good calcium source with your well water but you can pick up some Epsom salts for mag if a deficiency shows up. Just watch your plant growth and whenever you see any leaf discoloration or other issues take a pic in natural light and post it. You will get great help.
My “Gary”, a GG4 photo, was not doing well and everyone was so helpful. My water pH was to high and she was in nutrient lock out.
I am no expert. This is my first real indoor grow. We used to just throw bag seed in the garden to see what would happen.
I am going to tag a couple of growers that know more about nutrients and pH than I do. If they can’t help they will tag others.
Do you have a line that bypasses your softener? If home was built with softener your outdoor hose bib may not be softened water, and then you may also have another untreated bib around your pressure tank or softener. If the softener was scabbed in, then you may not have bypass.
If you do have a bypass, I would send that for testing. In general, higher sodium levels of softened water isn’t good for plants. If you can’t get away from the softened water i believe there are some other filters available though.
@dbrn32. I totally forgot about the effect of water softeners! All that sodium. I remember something called SAR - sodium adsorption ratio. I’ll have to look that up.
Hard water contains basically the same chemicals found in limestone. Small amounts of limestone (or hard water) are used to raise the pH of your soil. The amount of difference the hard water makes depends on how much you use and how hard the water is.
“At low levels, sodium appears to bolster yields, possibly acting as a partial substitute for potassium deficiencies. But when excessive, sodium is toxic and induces deficiencies of other nutrients, primarily potassium, calcium and magnesium.” -Jorge Cervantes
So there is a balance – depending on where you live and how hard the original water is depends on whether or not you should try to bypass the softener or not. If bypassing the softer works I would try that route. If you cannot, a 1.5 is very soft and that salt will build up on your plants.
options?? Just my 2 cents
See what your original water analysis is (before the softer) and possibly use that.
Buy a RO system (there are a few fairly affordable ones out there).
Make sure you flush your plants to try and keep the salt build up in check.
Buy distilled water from the store and use that.
If you do not have a hose bib before your water softener, do you possibly have an outside frost free hydrant near the well casing? Yes I understand that may be difficult to use for watering your plants, but you can get an very accurate water analysis of what exactly is in your water. Then what I did was actually installed a hose bib on the main copper water line as it came into the basement and before water softener. Just a suggestion
There’s a tap on my system before the softener. I had both the raw and treated water tested
Here’s the raw water analysis
Raw
Mineral Water Analysis
Hardness 25 gpg. (1 Grain per gal = 17.1 mg/l) 0-4.38 gpg Soft, 4.39-8.77 gpg moderately hard, 8.78 -17.54 hard and over 17.55 is very hard . Hard water is “hard” to use, requiring more soap and cleaning products. Hard water scale builds up in pipes, water heaters and home appliances, severely reducing their efficiency.
Iron: .07 mg/1. Iron exceeding 0.3 mg/l. Iron is an essential element and does not generally cause health effects. High amounts of iron can cause staining of clothing, sinks, toilets and bathtubs. Iron can give water a metallic taste. The maximum level for iron in water is 0.3 mg/l.
Manganese: 0 mg/1. Manganese levels over 0.05 mg/l may lead to staining of clothing and grey/black on bathroom fixtures. Exposure to too much manganese over a long period of time could harm your nervous system. The Vermont Department of Health has a health advisory level for manganese of 0.3 mg/l to protect the nervous system.
PH: 8.0 Most natural waters have a pH in the range of 6.5 to 8. A pH below 7.0 indicates acid in the water, which may be corrosive to metal pipes.
TDS: 400 mg/l a test measuring the electrical conductivity provides an estimate of the total dissolved solids. A TDS reading above 500 exceeds the EPA maximum levels for drinking water.
It is. It’s not uncommon in our locality. My last house was 4-5 miles away from the new one and The water there was just as hard and had the lovely addition of sulfur. Love that rotten egg smell when you’re trying to have a glass of ice water
Our current system has the raw water running through a sediment filter, then a carbon filter then the softener.
@Caligurl@Covertgrower with the raw water hardness at 25gpg do you think there’s a benefit to using the raw instead of the treated water or is it just out of the frying pan and into the fire?
I have a utility sink I use to water my plants - any recommendations if I decided to try a small R/O filter?
Well water is that is that hard, won’t hurt the plants. Once you adjust your ph, because it’s so hard, will be very stable. (Hard water is more stable because of the minerals)
RO water will work, as many people use it, but if you can get hard water with out being softened, it’ll work just fine.
Be aware of the added salt in the conditioned water, best not use that if you can.
So looking for advice. Have started with Epson Salt. Checked all other levels and out of the entire plant this and one other look like this… this plant has had this since about 2 months in . Started mid September. Never any brown or dead fans.
