How to flush properly?

I have A plant I kept in veg im going to test on that to see how it goes from there. This way I don't lose my whole grow. Trial and error I guess is usually the best method. Thank you all for your help and input, it's given a newbie grower more information =)
 
multiVortex said:
I'm using bleach in my hydro reservoirs now. 2ml/gal, every day. Not a problem. :cheesygrinsmiley:

(Evap rate is 2ml+/- per day, and really you can go a tick higher without issue. 2ml is the top for me though.)


It's been working really well, and compared to hydroguard, etc... it's way less expensive.
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I go through a lot of H2O2 when I do DWC. I'd have to dig up my notes to be sure, but 15ml per gallon, IIRC, plus more as and when the spirit moves me. Haven't had any microbial (or algal) issues, yet. Might just be coincidence, IDK. Either way, it gives a nice oxygen boost when it decomposes. And it's relatively cheap.Turns into H2O and O2 so I figure, as chemicals go, it's probably one of the safest.
 
TorturedSoul said:
I go through a lot of H2O2 when I do DWC. I'd have to dig up my notes to be sure, but 15ml per gallon, IIRC, plus more as and when the spirit moves me. Haven't had any microbial (or algal) issues, yet. Might just be coincidence, IDK. Either way, it gives a nice oxygen boost when it decomposes. And it's relatively cheap.Turns into H2O and O2 so I figure, as chemicals go, it's probably one of the safest.
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I just bought one of those all in one dwc bucket kits to try out. Waiting on Amazon smh. Been doing alot of research, im neevous and very excited lol
 
Hey I like talking about water quality! I might not have a fancy title under my name here but I have a pretty fancy one in real life, water/wastewater engineer and this talk is right up my alley. I have multiple municipality clients who I work with and some use chlorine and others use the ammonia process of adding chloramine. Let me start off by saying this, if chlorine or chloramine levels in your water concern you, add a granulated activated carbon (GAC) whole house filter to your home, it will remove it and just about ever contaminate in your water. If anyone is familiar with the recent issues surrounding fire fighting foams used at airports contaminating groundwater with PFAs, GAC filters are at the forefront of treating the water contaminated with it, along with a few others (RO being another).

Now that is out of the way, let’s get into more about municipalities and their water treatment. The levels your municipality uses when treating their water is more than likely at the minimum threshold of treatment, just enough to keep you from drinking algae. Why, because it is the most cost effective, why use a lot when a little will do? I have seen things inside of your drinking water reservoirs and steel storage tanks you would not imagine, refer back to adding a whole house GAC filter. I have also crawled through 48” diameter concrete pipe underground for over 3 miles for 10 hours without seeing daylight for an inspection, not for the claustrophobic, PERIOD! I’ve actually crawled (technically road on a stake board type contraption) through a lot of pipe in my career, not fun when you are 6’-4”, 275lbs. I have been lucky enough to walk or even ride golf carts through miles of pipe underground.

Now let’s talk about the acceptable chlorine and chloramine levels in your water set by the EPA (sorry neighbors to the north, I have no idea what you do up there in Canada. I lied actually I do but that’s for another time. I also do international work as well, a lot in Western Africa, talk about major problems.). The maximum contaminate level (MCL) for your water set by the EPA is 4.0 mg/l, which is equal to 4.0 ppm. A study was performed by UMass Water Quality for Crop Production that studied the effect of these and other contaminates in agriculture. They found out that for agricultural crops the level where CL2 (chlorine and chloramine) become toxic to plants is around 100 ppm for foliar and 150 ppm for root applications, for ornamental plants it’s around the 140 ppm level. This would lead me to think that you should never even have to consider chlorine or chloramine an issue for your grows.

Now this does not go to speak for special cases, like those people reporting strong chlorine odors from there water. I will state this, if you do smell it, something is wrong. You should never smell it in your drinking water. If you do, take a sample of it (sterilized water bottle is ideal in this case and availability), put it on ice (a necessity), and take it directly to your municipality right away, do not sit around, don’t not pass go, just go directly there. The only time you should have levels high enough to smell chlorine, which is definitely above the MCL given by the EPA (probably somewhere in the 350+ ppm range in order to smell it FYI), is during disinfection of water mains, reservoirs, etc. This happens during construction of the water assets, new or existing. Once construction is complete it is mandatory to rinse down (reservoirs) or fill (pipelines and smaller assets) with a very concentrated sodium hypochlorite or similar solution to kill everything, for a required period of time (usually 24 hrs), then flush, fill with fresh potable water, check that CL2 residuals are within acceptable levels, and preform a Bac-T test (checking for coliforms, aka poop), before ever putting it into service for the public to drink. I am not saying that I don’t believe anyone when they say they can smell bleach in their water, it does happen, but if you do, you shouldn’t be and you need to tell your municipality.

I hope this information helps out some or at least gives people an understanding on what’s going on/in their water. Lastly, as a hydroponic grower I do not use RO water, completely unnecessary, and I use water straight from the tap right into my rdwc system, no sitting out overnight or anything like that.

Sorry that this wasn’t on point with the OP’s question but I’ve just been seeing a lot of confusion about water quality and gardening on here and just wanted to bring attention to what I have learned in my 10+ years (still new) as an engineer.
 
I will call my town tomorrow to see what they say. I have a ppm meter honestly I believe that when i tested the water out of the sink it was around 40 ppm.
 
ridefas78 said:
I will call my town tomorrow to see what they say. I have a ppm meter honestly I believe that when i tested the water out of the sink it was around 40 ppm.
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If you are referring to CL2 content of your water, the 40 ppm reading you are getting is total dissolved solids (TDS, measured in ppm or EC) which is everything in your water not just CL2 and honestly most, if not, almost all of that ppm would be related to the hardness of your water (calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, bicarbonates, chlorides, and sulfates). A ppm of 40 is actually low (MCL is 500 ppm), most municipalities shoot for around a TDS of 100-200 ppm (actual hardness values of 60-120 ppm, but it depends on where you live and the natural hardness of the water source), again a lot is from hardness in the water. This range is normal because again, why try to remove more when a range of 60-120 will do. Ask if they have a yearly water quality report, they should have one, it’s required. Some municipalities will do quarterly reports but most just do a yearly. It will list everything (at least what’s required to be tested for) in the water samples they took from the water supply, generally from the reservoirs or storage tanks, and will list the levels found compared to the MCLs given by the EPA. That would give you an idea of what the CL2 would be. Definitely look into the hardness values they give, if you are at 40 ppm, it sounds like you have pretty soft water in which you may finding yourself having to supplement your grow with cal/mag if you start showing deficiencies for it. That’s mostly the reason I do not use RO water for my hydroponics, I have a tap water TDS of 140-160 ppm where I’m at, very hard water, but even so I did have a magnesium deficiency happen recently. When using RO water, you strip everything out of the water to the point if you drink enough of it can be fatal due it stripping essential elements from your body, so why take out what is mostly hardness you need for your grow when you end up having to add it back in via a cal/mag supplement. Some would argue that it brings down the pH as well, to which I would say pH down is a lot cheaper than the RO membrane filter you use that takes days. Your RO filter produces a harmful brine (think of all those elements it removed and being highly concentrated) from the removal process that you then flush down your drain to the wastewater plant, that then is put back into the drinking water supply through the release of effluent to either a river, lake, or pumped back directly into the ground via recharge basins or recharge wells.

Sorry for being so long winded, this really is my career and a passion of mine to supply clean water for everyone.
 
So a reading (sample taken after letting the water run 120 seconds) of 412 PPM isn't that bad, then. Not good, but it could be worse. I'll have to dig through a few boxes and see if I've still got the old kit for testing for the amount of certain specific things. Can't remember what that included, it was a gift that I accepted because the guy said they were throwing it away, and he didn't want it.
 
TorturedSoul said:
...and worked pretty good. Gee, do you suppose they still do, lol?
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still use them for certain circumstances. they never really left the toolbox. i use the commercial grade h202 now. most growers do, just a higher concentration.
 
glad multi chimed in about the bleach. no one where i live believes me when i tell them it isn't harmful to plants, and beneficial to the system, in small doses.
 
by an odd coincidence, my annual water quality report just hit my email this morning!

1592578438828.png
 
ridefas78 said:
i thought you were being a smart ass honestly i just skipped right over your comment lol.
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I was dead serious. 2ml/gal, every day.

Why 2ml, wouldn’t a little less work? Probably, maybe, dunno.

However, with light aeration guess how much chlorine dissipates in a day?

Yep, 2ml.
 
Doesn’t bleach kill mycorrhizae and enzymes? I use both. The only bleach I add at all, and this only for algae attacts, is h2o2.
 
Pinktiger777 said:
Doesn’t bleach kill mycorrhizae and enzymes? I use both. The only bleach I add at all, and this only for algae attacts, is h2o2.
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myco are not at all vital in a hydro grow, and enzymes are not living organisms. I can't see where this would be a problem in a hydro grow... its actually quite brilliant!
 
Emilya said:
myco are not at all vital in a hydro grow, and enzymes are not living organisms. I can't see where this would be a problem in a hydro grow... its actually quite brilliant!
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Exactly. All you're doing is running a sterile res. Look at Dutch Master's Zone, and yep... pretty much bleach. :)

I'm running solo right now, to see how things react without Z7. I'm hoping the results are satisfactory enough that I can drop the hydroguard/Z7 regimen. Not that they don't work, they do and are excellent products. If you want a sterile res, bleach (or the stronger H2O2) works really well. I'm hoping to curb costs where I can, and this is one of them. If so, it will open up room for other things to keep within a self-imposed limit to keep things under control.
 
well good news is that i called my water treatment plant and no chloramine=D so looks like i'm going to invest in a few air stones and i don't have to kill myself for water anymore!!!:bongrip::bongrip:
 
Stunned said:
I'm running an Octopot, and wonder if using H2O2 would be a beneficial addition to the reservoir.
Not that I have had much of a slime or algae problem so far at week 9 of flower
(knock on wood)
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That's basically a drip kind of res setup, similar to an autopot?

If so, it shouldn't be a big thing to add a little h2o2 (or bleach) once or twice a week, and even at a little taller dose since it won't be at the plant immediately. Mean a killing dose in the res shouldn't be an issue as only a fraction of water is leaving the res, and then still has water to mingle with when it gets to the pot site.
 

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