FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Alright, you chemists, help me out here. I have access to 12ppm water. The trick is that it is 5 miles away and I can only transport 20 gallons of it at a time. It takes 15 gallons to thoroughly water all that I have, which happens about twice a week with touch ups in between. I am setting up a 45 gallon trash can to act as a cistern so I don't have to schlep around a 2 gallon watering can when I could just use the hose with a sprinkle nozzle on it. Here is my question, can I use my 12ppm to dilute my 170ppm water down to a usable level? My thought is that if it even saves me 5 gallons, that is one less water jug that needs to be transported. My biggest concern is that I don't know what the chemical make up of the 170ppm water is so I don't know if diluting it is possible.

Panman wrote:Here is my question, can I use my 12ppm to dilute my 170ppm water down to a usable level?

I'd venture a guess that would be OK. For Sarracenia, if you bring it down to 100ppm, that should be fine. And for flytraps and most Drosera, if you bring it down to 50ppm, that should work too.

Perhaps start with a small test group and go from there?

Thanks, Matt. I had everything using 72ppm last summer with no issues that I know of. I have since moved and added more species so I may just try to keep everything around 50ppm. I really got spoiled at my last house where I could just turn on the hose and water everything. It made me lazy.

Mixing 1 gallon of 170 ppm water with 3 gallons of 12 ppm water should bring it down to about 50ish ppm. Test it just to make sure though.

Panman wrote:I really got spoiled at my last house where I could just turn on the hose and water everything. It made me lazy.

That's where we're at now -- we've been using tap water since 2009 or so. When we move to Missouri and have the well water there filtered through the limestone rock, we'll have to get an RO unit to use the water. I'm putting in a 2500 gallon cistern to hold rainwater, and I'm looking at a 1000gpd RO unit to use for backup. Lots of planning to do with this big move!