FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I bought a TDS meter on saturday, and it came on tuesday, is working great, and i reccomend this product to anyone who wants to know about their water for CP's!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWNX:IT

Ok, this are the results:

March 29, 2011:

Tap hot water: 137ppm, minutes later: 140ppm. I noticed that in hot tap water, the ppm started out at 180 decreasing fast to 137-140ppm.

Tap cold water from the same sink as the hot water: 120ppm, minutes later: 115ppm. I noticed that the ppm started at about 90ppm slowly increasing to 115-120ppm.

Water from refrigerator: 110ppm, minutes later: 105ppm.


rain collected water: 5ppm


Drinking bottle water purified from food lion: 18ppm, minutes later: 18ppm

Tap water bathroom 1: 121ppm, minutes later: 120ppm

Water from outside: 115ppm, minutes later: 115ppm



March 30, 2011:

tap hot water: 122ppm

tap cold water: 120ppm

water from refrigerator: 120ppm

rain water: 3ppm

drinking bottle water purified from food lion: 16ppm

tap water bathroom 1: 120ppm

water from outside: 118ppm

I still need to do some more testing, and testing water for hours, even days.
I have come to the conclusion that my tap water is in the 100-130ppm range, which is better than i thought it would be, that's good news i guess!!

Please answer these questions to the best of your knowledge, thank you!

1) Is this water good enough to actually use on VFT's, Droseras, Pinguiculas, Sarracenias, nepenthes, cephalotus or definitely no?


2)Why does this happens, that hot water ppm starts high, and then decreases, and cold water from the same sink, starts low but increasing???, am i assuming wrong that the hot water because in any way condensates leaving more solids, but then it starts to cool down, which gives the right amount of ppm in water?, and cold water because the ppm is cold, which the tds meter doesn't take it, but when it starts to heat, it gives the right amount of ppm in water?

water from food lion, that i guess is good to use, since it gave me 18ppm:



TDS METER:

Good to hear your TDS meter is working

Does anybody knows if my tap water is at least good for nepenthes, or in overall all my plants?
Thanks in advanced!

jht:
Just like the Waterboy said: "Now that's high quality H2O"

Seriously, that's pretty good tap water. Mine is about 300 PPM. The only CP I water with tap water are the hardier Nepenthes. I just make sure it runs out the bottom every time. I'm sure you could use it on your Nepenthes with regular flushing. You probably could use it on Flytraps also as long as you occasionally flush with rain or RO water. Just try it on some before you use it on everything.

TDS meters and pH meters are designed to take readings at 25 degrees C. Some more expensive meters have an automatic temperature correction (ATC), but even those should be used on water near 25 C.

I wish my tap water was a good as yours.

Brad

jht, your tap water is spectacular! My tap water is at about 380! Crazy, huh!

Thank you BradR!!!!

I will test the water in some VFT's, problem is i have them all together, but sounds like something i should be looking forward to do this days! I think my water is not that bad been close to the 100ppm range, now is time to let the water sit for a day and see the results, my bet is that it will go down to at least a 90 since some minerals will we "evaporated" or will dissapear

Thank you again!

jht-union wrote:Thank you BradR!!!!

my bet is that it will go down to at least a 90 since some minerals will we "evaporated" or will dissapear

Thank you again!

JHT:
The minerals don't evaporate. Only the water and some volatile gases (like chlorine) will evaporate. Some minerals will precipitate with time like calcium reacting with CO2 in the air to form calcium carbonate, but it won't improve the PPM much by letting it sit. It will actually raise the PPM if enough water evaporates.

OOPs, i forgot, otherwise we would see small particles rising with water when it evaporates in strong sun , i guess that's why the hot tap water started at 180 going down to to the 137ppm since it evaporates leaving the solids but then cooling off! right?

JHT:

You should only measure the TDS at 25 degrees C. TDS meters are electrical conductivity meters. They don't measure PPM directly. Hot water has higher conductivity because the water molecules ionize more at higher temperature. So it fools the meter into thinking that the mineral content is higher. The mineral content is the same in your water when it is hot and cold. but your meter gives erroneous reading at any temperature other than 25 C. (77 F.).

Brad