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 Harry_Ba11sach
cannoisseur
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 11,753
Loc: Nepal 
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 On the topic of chlorine in tap water and the effect on the microbial herd.   2
#705435 - 01/08/14 10:07 AM (11 years, 2 months ago) |
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I've seen a lot of fear happening over watering your plants with tap water. That fear is unfounded and silly so I wanted to share my thoughts.
The chlorine in tap water from municipalities is generally dosed at a rate to keep water sanitary after a major treatment plant. That means that they dose the Chlorine in at very small quantities to kill a couple tens or hundreds of bacterial cells per mL of water. Compared to the TRILLIONS upon TRILLIONS of cells in your organic tea and soil it will have little to no effect. Chlorine isn't an unstoppable killing machine, after a very small amount of contact with bacteria the ionic gradient is reduced to the point of inactivity.
From the CDC website; Quote:
Other disadvantages of hypochlorites include ...[sic]... inactivation by organic matter....
.
Good soil should be at least 30-50% organic matter, which means that the chlorine will be inert literally within seconds after contact.
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Harry_Ba11sach
cannoisseur
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 11,753
Loc: Nepal
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Re: On the topic of chlorine in tap water and the effect on the microbial herd. (moved) [Re: Harry_Ba11sach]
#705471 - 01/08/14 11:11 AM (11 years, 2 months ago) |
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 This thread was moved from Soil & Organic Nutrients.
Reason:
For better viewage.
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Harry_Ba11sach
cannoisseur
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 11,753
Loc: Nepal
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Re: On the topic of chlorine in tap water and the effect on the microbial herd. (moved) [Re: TribalSeed]
#705504 - 01/08/14 12:54 PM (11 years, 2 months ago) |
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Something to note, if you're getting a reading of 149ppm TDS from your tap, that's not going to be Chlorine, it's going to be dissolved solids such as calcium, iron, magnesium etc which are very important to your plant. If I'm not mistaken, it's a very rare municipality that stocks their water with anything more than 5ppm of Chlorine.
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Harry_Ba11sach
cannoisseur
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 11,753
Loc: Nepal
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Re: On the topic of chlorine in tap water and the effect on the microbial herd. (moved) [Re: Magash]
#705663 - 01/08/14 09:14 PM (11 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
TribalSeed said:
Quote:
Harry_Ba11sach said:
Something to note, if you're getting a reading of 149ppm TDS from your tap, that's not going to be Chlorine, it's going to be dissolved solids such as calcium, iron, magnesium etc which are very important to your plant. If I'm not mistaken, it's a very rare municipality that stocks their water with anything more than 5ppm of Chlorine.
I have looked at the water company's site and read the water tests that have been done and like you said, not much chlorine at all. One thing tho, it says chlorine and chloramine. Is that from switching over to chloramine or do they put both in the supply now?
That's from the switch. They might do both or just one of them, but it's really irrelevant as far as cultivation is concerned.
Quote:
TribalSeed said:
Quote:
phychotron said:
150 is where I'm at and its about perfect, plenty of cal/mg. It sucks drinking it but the plants seem to like it. An 4 stage RO system cost ~$130 brand new on ebay.
People who use well water might have some concern for their water source, as it can become contaminated with bacteria.
I have found the ROs on ebay, but I am also including the filter prices as well, and how much water I use each time...etc. The cost doesn't really seem worth it. I think a lot of my problem was having 149ppms and then using CalMag on top of it. Same here about drinking it, tastes horrible.
Quick question, will PH down add too much ppms to the water or is that just a PH thing that doesn't affect the ppms?
Before I spend any money on anything I am going to get my feeding under control and use plain PH'd tap water for a while to see if it messes with them in anyway.
Check out my growlog to see the issues I was having.
Generally pH adjusters won't have any impact on your TDS, because ppm readings come from total dissolved solids (hence, TDS) and pH adjustment solutions are just ionic adjusters of chelated H+ or OH- ions, which aren't technically considered solids.
Quote:
Magash said:
I've grown for over 30 years and only the outdoor gardens in the boonies got spring water everything else has been tap water. Some have had 150ppm some at 5ppm and it all works the same.
In other-words I've yet to hear "gee wiz Magash I'd really like your bud but if it wasn't for that chlorine aftertaste"
I have already more then proven the "organic taste better then chem grow" is nothing but utter bullshit. The tap water thing falls into that category.
Exactly. It won't have any impact on the microbial life in your soil (which IS important when growing organic), and it sure as shit won't change the flavor of those buds!
I also agree with you on the organic vs not organic debate. Perhaps I'll have to type up a sizeable post showing that Hydro plants and soil plants eat the exact same shit from the exact same source. The only difference between organic and not is how heady your dreads are, brah.
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Harry_Ba11sach
cannoisseur
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 11,753
Loc: Nepal
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Re: On the topic of chlorine in tap water and the effect on the microbial herd. (moved) [Re: TribalSeed]
#706751 - 01/12/14 07:16 PM (11 years, 2 months ago) |
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One last quick bump. Hardly a scientific study here, but it does support my point. http://www.ext.colostate.edu/ptlk/1548.html
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Harry_Ba11sach
cannoisseur
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 11,753
Loc: Nepal
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Re: On the topic of chlorine in tap water and the effect on the microbial herd. (moved) [Re: Farmer Joe]
#706846 - 01/13/14 08:08 AM (11 years, 2 months ago) |
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You mean something like Mayan Microzyme from Humboldt nutrients?
I think the point still stands. You'll certainly lose a few to chlorine (that's what it's for, after all), but the mechanism of sterilization for chlorine is to bind to the microorganisms (chlorine has a negative charge, so it works in a very similar way to an acid sanitizer). Once it binds to a bacteria and immobilizes it, the chlorine is no longer free to do ANY more sanitization. I just checked and my municipal water is 0.05ppm chlorine. When cultivating soil colonies you're shooting for trillions upon trillions of cells (good soil should be well over 50% bacteria and fungi by weight), so I would think the impact even in nutrient solutions would be very very minimal.
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Harry_Ba11sach
cannoisseur
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 11,753
Loc: Nepal
|
Re: On the topic of chlorine in tap water and the effect on the microbial herd. (moved) [Re: phychotron]
#707161 - 01/13/14 10:31 PM (11 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
phychotron said:
The guy from Canna told me not to run an air stone through the nutrient solution because it changes the chemistry, water would not normally have a 70% nitrogen solution pumping through it. My tank stays nice, non-recirculating.
They also told me not to over do it on the microbes, as they compete for nutrients when in large numbers.
Is he aware that atmospheric air IS 70% nitrogen? So like, if you run an airstone through an aquarium pump then that makes him a giant idiot?
You want a bit of air pumped into it to cultivate aerobic bacteria, anerobic bacteria are usually the bad shit (at least when it comes to hydro reservoirs and soil...for the most part).
As for the microbes competing for nutrients, this is true. But then some will die, and the population will restore to normal. It's just like if there were 10,000 lions and 100 gazelles. 9,990 lions would die of starvation and the gazelle population would stabilize after a brief decline. As I've said before, soil in nature is anywhere from 50-75% bacteria, fungi viruses and nematods by WEIGHT. Think about what that means for a second. You would have to put some SERIOUS work in to over colonize a soil.
I used to think Canna really knew what they were doing. I just lost a lot of faith in them.
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