FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

So I've seen this discussed before and seems like the consensus is as long all water is under 50ppm it's generally safe (outside of a couple rare ones - like the debatable dehumidifier water). However, I read a while back that rain water collected from the roof may contain carcinogens (from shingles) which are bad for "us". I've heard people don't like using rainwater collected in this manner for plants they eat like tomatoes.

Are there any concerns about the chemicals in shingles hurting or killing the fly traps or am I thinking too deep into this?

Thanks!

I'd worry a little if the roof were newly installed. Barring that, I'm feeling your good to go. I've been using roof water on plants or a long time and not noticed any deleterious effects on plants or tropical fish...
Anton

You may also choose to filter the water through a coffee filter or similar. This won't affect any dissolved chemicals, of course, but can help reduce the presence of tiny fragments of shingle grit, leaves, muck, mold, dead bugs, etc. that pile up in gutters.

We have huge Fiskars rain barrels. The faucet tap is several inches above the bottom of the tank. This allows crud to sink to the bottom. The rain water we use out of the tank is visually clear.

Thanks for the feedback! I just purchased a diverter for the gutter. I’ll plan on filtering the water through a coffee filter to clean it up a bit. Bring on some rain!

Also if it hasn't rained in a while it doesn't hurt to wait a few minutes for the rain to flush off the impurities from the roof and gutters before you collect the rainwater. Yes, this means you may have to dash out in the rain and get a little wet.

I've been using rain from my roof and ever since I had a new roof installed. NO PROBLEMS AT ALL.

I'm thinking I may have to wait for the impurities to run off like Big-Jack mentioned. I put some plastic Tupperware under a few gutters and grabbed them this morning. They were quite yellow and had a tds rating of 46 so now I'm a little nervous about installing the diverter if it's going to be that high.

We have more rain coming today so will check it out again and see if this first rain helped clean the roof.

Mikedaman34 wrote:I'm thinking I may have to wait for the impurities to run off like Big-Jack mentioned. I put some plastic Tupperware under a few gutters and grabbed them this morning. They were quite yellow and had a tds rating of 46 so now I'm a little nervous about installing the diverter if it's going to be that high.

We have more rain coming today so will check it out again and see if this first rain helped clean the roof.

The yellow is pollen I'd imagine but that TDS reading is HIGH for rain. I usually get 2 ppm.

Yup so they rain came down nice and heavy. I waited about ten mins and started collecting. Ended up with about 9 gallons at 9ppm. I’m happy with this number so dirty roof is definitely a thing

Lesson learned - let the rain clean the roof before collecting it. Thanks for all the info everyone!