Is deionized water safe for the plants?

[tsox]

is deionized water safe for the plants? from your experience?

 

[oldhippie64]

I haven't used it myself on plants. in other experiences I have found deionized is as good as distilled and better then spring water.

 

[Icemud]

I use it all the time... Its the best for your plants because there is nothing in it, just pure water. So you can add what is needed instead of using somthing like city water which may have 400+ppm's of unknowns.

 

[OMGrown]

I second Icemud's opinion. DI water is a blank slate, giving you full control of your nutrient input. Just make sure you get all of the macro and micronutrients accounted for since there is nothing to fill in the gaps.

 

[tsox]

so you use deionized water adding only the fertilizers needed?

 

[Cultivator]

i would use tap water and if its too hard add half ro to it. my water is soft where i am so its no problem but if u are new to growing it would most likely to be easier using tap water with chlorine bubbled out than ro water. Unless u understand the nutrient needs of the plants and can spot defiencys quickly. obviously this would still be the case with tap water but u'll be less likely to have probs with tap water. Alot of people struggle with calcium and magnesium def with r/o water. Just depends on how fast u can learn and quality of nutes u use.

 

[oldman60]

RO water and a bit of calmag every res change and you're good to go. There are RO units that add the calmag for you.

 

[tsox]

thanks guys anyway but that RO water has to do with the topic?

 

[oldman60]

My understanding is reverse osmosis is ion exchange.

 

[Icemud]

Reverse osmosis is different than Ion exchange I believe.... My unit is a R/O unit and I added an optional Deionizing Resin or DI filter to it which lowered my R/O water's ppm from 25ppm to 0ppm... I think there different.

 

[oldman60]

The way they remove ions is different but the end result is the same. Water without the ions.
Distilled, RO, demineralized all remove cation and anions.

"Reverse osmosis (RO) is a membrane-technology filtration method that removes many types of large molecules and ions from solutions"

Reverse osmosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[tsox]

so we are talking about the same water but diffrent procedure of prodution?

 

[Cultivator]

no ro water isnt deionized unless a di filter added. Ro membrane will remove most but not all particles. RO water still conducts electricity, deionized water does not.

 

[oldman60]

Yes, tsox that is basically correct. All water will have some conductivity because you can't remove all of the dissolved solids.
Even triple distilled which is about as pure as you can get. Measured in the parts per trillion.

Worked in a lab for decades. Whether the water is distilled, demineralized or RO the analysis results will be very close to the same.