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Hard water and calcium issue
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Posted by kuyaig (My Page) on Sun, Feb 7, 10 at 11:30
| i have read somewhere that calcium in deep-well water is immobile, a bit "larger" that the plants will hardly take.
the issue am facing is my water has around 280ppm calcium (based on the testing that i have done using aquarium testing kit). am not sure how almost accurate that testing is.
do i have to ignore the calcium in my water and just add enough calcium from inorganic sources?
thanks |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Hard water and calcium issue
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| Your water is fine. Most plants thrive on calcium. Rather than get things too wound up and complicated, why not just give it a go and see how things proceed? Our tap water is so hard, you can almost walk on it divine or not. I grow tomatoes and they just love the stuff. It "does" make a big difference when you are mixing your nutrients, so be sure to have your truncheon in hand when you make them up. My water alone gives me an EC reading of about 1.2 right out of the tap! |
RE: Hard water and calcium issue
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| How's the calcium intake of your plants? Hard water needs to be addressed properly if you want to achieve optimum plant growth in hydroponics. You may add 1 tbsp. of baking soda or sodium bicarbonate per 5 gallons of water to lower the levels of calcium and magnesium in your water. This should help you soften your water. |
RE: Hard water and calcium issue
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Too much sodium is toxic, you could dilute the tapwater with rainwater or just use plain rainwater.
280ppm coming from your water sufficient for most plants needs. The vast majority of commercial nutes contain a goodly amount of calcium nitrate which will increase it. |
RE: Hard water and calcium issue
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| Softening the water with backing Soda for hydroponics is definitely not the solution. 280 ppm of calcium is surely high, the sufficiency for plants is only around 150-200 ppm. But some of the Ca in tap water is available to plants and some isn't. Bicarbonates will raise and buffer your PH as well. Best is to mix hard water with RO, rain or even distilled water. The lower the mineral content of your water, the better you will know the actual nutrient content and can adopt your nutrient composition or choice of nutrients. |
RE: Hard water and calcium issue
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| So what were the actual results, as this thread started in February. I'm not a chemist, yet. However, I am starting that portion of schooling in August (yep, back in school and in a completely different field). Until then, I'm afraid some of my info has come from less than reliable sources, such as trade magazines, and I can't remember what I read in those and what I read from good sources. That being said, isn't some of the calcium in hard water a problem due to precipitation? I read once that you can soften water by filtering through peat moss or soaking a bag of it in water. That wasn't for hydro, though. Anyone know if that works or not for hydro applications? Just curious. I now use rain water almost exclusively for hydro, so it doesn't matter to my process. But, I'm fortunate enough to get plenty of rain where I live. |
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