Topic: Hard Water

[wahaj]

Hey,

I bought a water mister about a month ago i think. i mist my plants with it every morning to keep the moisture level up. Now the thing is i have lots of baby house plants and some of them are showing signs that my water has high akalinity.

is there something i can do to purify my water? the water in this area is very hard. i've tried looking in garden centres but i can't seem to find anything like that.

Now i do have a fish tank and for that i have a "tap safe" solution....do you think i can use something like that?

[kt.]

Ask me one on sport :o

[wahaj]

Ask me one on sport :o

lol. I'm just a bit worried that's all. i have some very tiny house plant babies....and orchids and bananas.....and palms and very fine leaved plants.....some of them don't tolerate any lime in the soil. i've already lost 2 babies beause of that :(.

[LesH]

    Leave a clean bucket outside. When it rains, the way the weather is at the moment, you'll soon have plenty of rain water to mist your plants with.

[wahaj]

    Leave a clean bucket outside. When it rains, the way the weather is at the moment, you'll soon have plenty of rain water to mist your plants with.

this is true lol. now why didn't i think of that?

[Mrs Ava]

Boil your kettle and fill your mister up with boiled water.  All of the cruddy crusty lime will be deposited in the bottom of your kettle and your water will be a lot less limey.  ;D

[flytrapman]

Hi
Boiling will have little effect, the water for the fish will be fine.
Try defrosting ice that forms in the freezer that will be OK, but the easiest way is to use rainwater as already suggested

[muddy boots]

Why not just get a domestic water filter jug?  They don't cost much and the filter lasts for about 45 days.  :D

[OllieC]

My dad uses big bottles of drinking water from the supermarket for any delicate house plants (including his carnivorous collection).

[cornykev]

:D Wahaj nice to see you got a friendlier responce from this lot than you did on UK oasis. :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X ;D ;D

[OllieC]

Did it all get a bit funny over on the Oasis? They do appear to take themselves a bit seriously! I really enjoy the light-handed censorship on this forum... Sorry, off topic but sometimes we take for granted what a nice bunch we are.

Group Hug, anyone?

[Curryandchips]

An interesting thread ...

Boiling will work if the water has temporary hardness, as this is precipitated out above a certain temperature (not sure on freezing). This will have no effect if the water is permanently hard as the minerals stay dissolved.
Water filters only remove particles from the water, not dissolved stuff, unless it is a molecular filter (at the limits of my knowledge here ...). Rainwater may be the simplest option.

Is the question on sport still available ...  :D

Missed the oasis thing, will check it out ....

[tim k]

boiling Will reduce the kh = carbonate hardness, (a bit ) but will not reduce the gh = general hardness or ph partial hardness

tap water normally has a kh reading of between 10 - 20 gh= degrees of hardness
ph of between 6.5-10. 7 being neutral so not acidic or alkaline

to reduce the ph you first need to reduce the kh,  if you add acid the kh will buffer the ph to within .1 gh of the original ph but if you keep adding acid the kh will soon burn off and the ph will then crash to bellow 5 ph (once you get bellow 7 with zero kh the ph will continue to fall

rain water is the best as it should be 6 - 6.5 ph 0 kh with no gh as it has not picked up any of the aforementioned minerals by osmosis

if you pass rainwater through a britta type jug filter which is basically short travel carbon filtration it will remove most of the impurities the rain picks up as its falling

so rather than buying a reverse osmosis unit (£250+for a goodish one) then adding chemicals to buffer the kh to stop the ph crashing i would personally use rain water and a britta

hope that helps

tim

[Andy H]

Is this the cause of our wellard water then???

[tim k]

not sure Andy but just checked your profile and yes you ph runs a about 9 your kh is 18-20dh and your conductivity is about 750-1200 microsiemens so you water is rock hard (not checked the hardness in gh in you area)but should imagine about 22dh

[Andy H]

Thanks tim(I think) went straight over me ed!!!! ;D

So would rain water be best? or mineral/spring?

[cornykev]

??? ??? I'm 7 foot 3 inches and it went miles over my ead.   ::) ::) ;D ;D ;D

[tim k]

 ;D ;D sorry Andy use rainwater but let it rain for 30mins before you collect it then put it through a britta

mineral water is hard, more than yours spring water to unless its collected from peat bogs or peaty areas ( you don't often get that as the processes to remove the tannin's makes it to expensive)
atb

tim
ps don't use the britta for drinking use after you have put rain water through it

[Andy H]

Thanks tim

Mind you, does the white stuff do any damage?
The plant seems healthy enough despite the white?

I don`t want to lose it though as took ages to germinate and grow the chilean wine palm....

[tim k]

not sure what the white stuff is Andy take a bit off dry it out and then drop it into some viakal to see if it bubbles up if it does it could be a build up of kh  but i doubt it, whats the ph of the soil in the pot. and is the white stuff soft or crusty