JamesC
Member
I've been using RO water with a bit of tap water added for some years now as I have found I always had problems with using Thames water straight from the tap. Now that my RO unit needs to be changed as it's getting a bit ancient I have decided to try fresh spring water. I am rather lucky in the fact that I have an underground spring in my own back garden that I have access to via a manhole. So far I've just used an old powerhead with tubing attached that is lowered down into the water and pumps the water out slowly into my 25l containers. If all goes well I'll get a small pond pump and have it pump the water into a large garden water butt that I currently use to store RO water.
With my cheapo test kits I get:
KH - 7
GH - 13
Ca - 90ppm (or as CaCO3 - 230ppm)
Mg - 0ppm
NO3 - 5ppm
PO4 - 0ppm
NH3/4 - 0ppm
pH - 6.6
For the past 2 weeks I've been using this water rather than the RO water for my water changes and so far all is good. I do add 10ppm Magnesium to the water as the water's GH is all Calcium. Be interesting to see what changes there are in the plants over the coming weeks/months. The tonina fluviatilis that I have is starting to look a bit sad, but I think I can live without that plant.
James
With my cheapo test kits I get:
KH - 7
GH - 13
Ca - 90ppm (or as CaCO3 - 230ppm)
Mg - 0ppm
NO3 - 5ppm
PO4 - 0ppm
NH3/4 - 0ppm
pH - 6.6
For the past 2 weeks I've been using this water rather than the RO water for my water changes and so far all is good. I do add 10ppm Magnesium to the water as the water's GH is all Calcium. Be interesting to see what changes there are in the plants over the coming weeks/months. The tonina fluviatilis that I have is starting to look a bit sad, but I think I can live without that plant.
James