Water Info 101:

Types of Water:

All water is “NOT” created equal. Clean pure water is vital to hydroponics. We always want to use Reverse Osmosis water when hydro gardening. Never use “Tap” water from your sink. Even when your topping off a reservoir tank, always use reverse osmosis water. Tap water is full of high calcium, magnesium, chlorine, nitrates and other harmful elements that will change the NPK ratios when hydro gardening. Tap water will have adverse affects on your plants, due to changing the NPK ratios of your nutrient solution. We want to maintain a neutral clean water environment for our crops. Water purification is essential for hydro gardening. Every hydroponic gardener must have a reverse osmosis water filter system for their garden.

Reverse Osmosis:

Make sure to buy a reverse osmosis system that can produce enough GPD (gallons per day) to adequately support your water demands of your garden. 100 GPD is a good start for most home gardens. Clean water can be stored in plastic reservoirs or tanks to be used as water needs persist.

Clean Water Reservoir:

Make sure to buy a reservoir that is big enough to hold your clean water for nutrient reservoir change outs. It should be as big as half at a minimum or large enough to fill all of your nutrient reservoirs at one time. Meaning you should be able to change out 2 out of 4 nutrient reservoirs at once at a minimum. If you go the route of getting a clean water reservoir that is only big enough to change out 1 and 2 reservoirs simultaneously. You will have to wait for the reverse osmosis to fill your clean reservoir back up, to change out the second set of nutrient reservoirs. Which would be reservoirs 3 and 4 once you have enough clean water made again. So therefore, it’s best to have a clean reservoir tank that can change out all of your nutrient reservoirs at one interval. Instead of waiting for the reverse osmosis system to catch up to fill back up the clean water reservoir. It’s all about making things as simple and efficient as possible in the garden. So you save time, because time is valuable that can be used doing other tasks.