Identifying Bad Water Quality Part 2
When is Your Water Too Dirty?
Let’s look at a possible scenario. Say you test your water and learn that the ppm is 300 and the hardness (calcium and magnesium) is 11 grains or 188 ppm (1 grain of hardness is equal to 17.1 ppm hardness).
Because you’re on well water you surmise the other 112 ppm are other minerals, such as iron, and possibly sulphur. The water tastes great to you and your friends and everyone believes it would be great water to garden with. It’s time to transplant some freshly rooted cuttings into larger containers. You know you are working with a variety of flowers that are sensitive to high ppm in their early stages. You want to keep your feed formula at around 400 ppm for the first week. At this point do you add 400 ppm of food to your water that is already 300 ppm or do you only add 100 ppm food? That’s the dilemma — you can never accurately control the amounts of critical inputs your plants need to feed properly.
Starting with pure water, close to 0 ppm, allows you to add calcium and magnesium in the precise quantities required during each phase of growth. Every other part of the nutrient formula can also be specified to exact amounts. Being able to control precisely what makes up the ppm of your plant food will allow you to dial-in amazing results and have beautiful harvests every time. You won’t have to worry about nutrient deficiencies or lockout problems by starting with pure water.
The EPA set a limit for the maximum ppm in water fit for human consumption to be 500. Below shows some common contaminants in water and their maximum allowed amounts in water. If you don’t want to drink your tap water, why feed it to your plants?
Water Contaminant Chart
The full list of all contaminants to be found in water and their maximum limits can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/index.html.