FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

1mg/l = 1ppm, so you can't water it with tap water. you can actually make your own distilled water but those are like 200$ and barely make 1 gallon of water, and you need to let the water cool down. so distillers are generaly not worth it unless you actually distill something other than water. you could buy a reverse osmosis unit but i think you have to do complicated stuff. if it rains a lot just collect rain water with a large funnel. that's basicly free and doesn't take up much time.
edit: didn't see that you alredy have a RO system. water softeners just replace "hard" minerals like calcium and magnesium and stuff with sodium and other "soft" minerals. they won't do anything to help the ppm, or at least not by a lot.

You can IF your tap water has a low ppm. Get yourself a TDS meter from Amazon for around $10 and check what's coming out your tap. Otherwise, don't water with home water unless you're willing to rush your plant. You can get a gallon of distilled water for $1 at Walmart and use that if money's tight right now. It's what I did til I got my RO Buddie. Now I filter my own water.

If it is an RO system connected to your ice machine than you could melt the ice and use that

Well you can fill a 5 gallon jug with RO Water from the grocery store dispenser. Then it's more like 1.50 for 5 gallons instead of a dollar a gallon. I don't know how many plants you have but 5 gallons should last a bit. If you can invest in a "portable" RO system theyre on amazon for like 140 dollars that you can connect to the faucet and take it off when you don't need it. That's better for travelling or in cases like yours.

Can you buy a ZeroWater system? They have coupons on their site. It's what I use for mine

Otherwise, can you collect rain water?

+1 on ZeroWater. Works well, and can't beat the price per gallon compared with distilled water.

I got 90 gallons thru my first filter before the TDS was above 000. My average tap water TDS ppm is low here in north Georgia: 45-50, so you may need to change the filter more frequently if your ppm is higher.

ZeroWater is my go-to. It comes with a cool TDS meter, too!

If you have a dehumidifier that water will work just fine.