FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Temperatures are rising and the plants are starting to come alive, and so the demand for clean water will also increase.

My tap water is 210ppm
Water in my fish pond is 120ppm
Rain water is 12ppm

So the only source of usable water is rainwater.

Bu i was thinking, ppm is the amount of minarals dissolved into the water. For carnivorous plants this is toxic but other plants use this to grow. So would it be possible to put some fast growing aquatic plants into a container with tap water and let those plants lower the ppm?

The easiest and cheapest thing you can do is collect rainwater.

Fieldofscreams wrote:The easiest and cheapest thing you can do is collect rainwater.

Thats what i did, collecting rainwater in buckets and pots. But this was really time consuming and did not get me a lot of water, especially for the summer.

So i was just thinking of other ways to collect some more water.

You must have a huge collection of CP's.

I've been collecting water all spring and I am up to 16 gallons of water. My goal is 20 gallons on standby at all times just in case we experience a drought like we sometimes do. I don't have a big collection so 20 gallons on standby should be perfect.

Collecting rain water is super easy once you get a system down.

Depending on where in the world you are they sell this amazing stuff you can use in a pinch, it's called distilled water, or in certain places battery water.

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i had some sphagnum in a container that seemed to lower the ppm. not confirmed though.

You could water with the fish pond water every 3rd or 4th time and rainwater the rest of the time that would work fine and stretch the rainwater a bit. Just a thought.

Fieldofscreams wrote: I've been collecting water all spring and I am up to 16 gallons of water. My goal is 20 gallons on standby at all times just in case we experience a drought like we sometimes do. I don't have a big collection so 20 gallons on standby should be perfect.

I'm going through 5 gal a week in my garage. It would probably be 10-20 per week outdoors right now and we're only just now starting to hit the 90s. I'd need a few large rain barrels to support mine on rain water outside.

You could water with the fish pond water every 3rd or 4th time and rainwater the rest of the time that would work fine and stretch the rainwater a bit. Just a thought.

Maybe once, but I sure wouldn't expose mine regularly to 120 ppm water.

So would it be possible to put some fast growing aquatic plants into a container with tap water and let those plants lower the ppm?

Interesting idea. I've wondered about planting heavy feeders with VFTs to help take up any TDS build up in the media. As far as purifying water, maybe if you found a heavy feeder, but it might take a while. It would probably almost be easier to distill it yourself.

Its not that i have a lot of plants, but i do have a tiny bog outside.

At the moment it uses around 5gallons a week with temperatures almost hitting 90.

And during summer it rains about once every two weeks, so thats why i was looking into different ways to get useable water.

Interesting idea. I've wondered about planting heavy feeders with VFTs to help take up any TDS build up in the media.

Theoretically it should work, its the same principle as using plants or a planted filter for aquariums or ponds.

But to try this out you would need at least two identical setups and a lot time/patience :p

How about baby pools? Much larger surface area for collecting than buckets, and you can find them on clearance at the end of summer. You could even cut a hole in the center, and place in over a 30 gallon trash can, so it acts as a funnel.

I would think the water plants might cause more algae, bacteria, other undesirable funk.

sbrooks wrote:How about baby pools? Much larger surface area for collecting than buckets, and you can find them on clearance at the end of summer. You could even cut a hole in the center, and place in over a 30 gallon trash can, so it acts as a funnel.

I would think the water plants might cause more algae, bacteria, other undesirable funk.

Using inflatable baby pools seems like a good idea, might try that one out if i can get my hands on a few cheap ones.

And i agree with the cons of using water plants, also what i was wondering about. Decomposing plant materials would also be able to pollute the water.

I dont know about the plants idea but since your question relates to doing it because your sources of good water are limited, other sources of useable water are distilled water, which was mentioned already, as well as RO water, which you can find at vending machines for cheaper than distilled water.

Reading another thread, there also seems to be some level of agreement that the Zero Water filters do a decent job of getting TDS down to good levels for CPs. In such a case, you have almost unlimited quantity of good water then, depending on the life of the filter.

I've thought about this, but plants needs NPK to thrive, so even if you did find a plant that uptakes a lot of calcium, ect, you'd have to add NPK to give it the vigor to do so, which would make the water bad for CPs. Growing water plants you basically fertilize the water like you're doing hydroponics.