FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Some “spring water” can have a high amount of minerals in them. If going for drinking water I would look for one treated by reverse osmosis as they usually have a low TDS measurement. Or go or go with distilled water. But, I’ve never grown pings so maybe they can handle a higher amount of minerals than sundews and flytraps can…?????

Thank you both, not sure how it could be chlorine or even minerals honestly since I use double filtered water. It's first filtered through Pure then that gets filtered through my zero water and tests at 0 TDS.

here in FRANCE we drink either mineral water (thus with various minerals depending on the geology of the source) or very simple spring water.

in nature the pings do not need reverse osmosis water, at home for all my pings, I use rainwater collected from my roof

jeff wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:11 am your filter allows chlorine in the water to pass

I was concerned when I read this in your comment, Jeff. I also use Zero Water for my plants, with no adverse effects. I checked the UK, EU, and US websites for the filters and all say that the filter removes 99% of chlorine.
I was worried that I may have to dump the many gallons of water that I'm storing in anticipation of the hot AZ summer.

My zero water pitcher manual says it removes chlorine

Interestingly, I tested the supermarket brand "drinking water" and it came up 0ppm on my TDS meter.

Cool. I wouldn't use that as a "constant", though. It may be that they're simply cutting costs by running distilled water into all the jugs and switching labels from "drinking" to "distilled" as inventory requires it. But, if they're doing that, they might at some point swing the scales the other direction. I think I'd check each gallon of that brand of water..."drinking" water seems like it should have some minerals simply for the taste factor. But, at 0ppm, I'd definitely use it for the plants! I've checked water from RO "drinking" water bottles and come up with around 15ppm...I haven't checked water from a regular drinking bottle. Naturally the "distilled" water that I've tested comes up at 0ppm. Does the grocery store drinking water you have say how it is filtered?

The label says it's from a "municipal water source" (location unknown). Processed by carbon filtration, RO, UV light, and oxygenation. It's the same price as a gallon of distilled water.

I think the chlorine others referred to is actually chloramines that not even RO removes. I think it’s mold since my rocks got some white fuzzy stuff also. I quit my little rock experiment because of that and the algae in the tray. A lot of airflow or a fan helps with the mold. In nature there is very good airflow and water that moves and is running so there is no mold. It could be minerals also, but if your rock is relatively new and the tds is zero, it is more likely to be mold. It normally doesn’t harm pings that have roots already so you should be fine

While some of it may have been minerals the mold made itself plenty obvious the other day. Looks like it was in the live sphagnum I had put in it. I removed the sphagnum to try treating it separately. Now I just have a bit of dark green algae on the rock. If it's not one thing.....lol

Yeah, chloramines are sometimes mistaken as part of total chlorine by the cheaper pool water test kits. It can build up over time and cause problems with heat exchangers as well as having a bad odor. Fortunately, it can be removed with activated carbon filters.