FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I collected rainwater from the roof of the house but it's a bit yellowish. Can I use it safely? I don't have a TDS tester to test it.

Get a meter and test it before you use it. That's the safest bet.

That's how I get my water for the most part. My roof water is 4 ppm. You and get a TDS meter for about $10-20 off amazon . There are cheaper but they come from China and take a while to get here.

I use a $20 meter on amazon I also collect from my roof dripline --- I usually let it rain heavy for a few minutes to wash a little gunk off, then I filter the water through an old nylon coffee pot filter, into funnel to bottles

but I test it usually each time I fill up.

riveraXVX wrote:I use a $20 meter on amazon I also collect from my roof dripline --- I usually let it rain heavy for a few minutes to wash a little gunk off, then I filter the water through an old nylon coffee pot filter, into funnel to bottles

but I test it usually each time I fill up.

Good advice. You want to let the roof rinse off for a while to flush away all the bird crap, leaves, asphalt oils, and itsy bitsy spiders before you start collecting water for your VFT's.

yep, another user here (thanks Leo756!) detailed a bit of how he collects rainwater and that nylon filter was a great idea also! asked the wife and sure enough she had a few random ones from random machines over the years that weren't even used, helps filter a good bit of the random materials our water ends up testing out at 2-5PPM usually

I was just about to ask the same question as last night it rained and I had moved my collection bottles off of the lawn as I had just put down some fertilizer and bottle closest to the roof runoff bottle collected a whole lot more than the other one.

I just ordered a tester and will have to stick with distilled water until I can test the roof runoff.