FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi everyone,

I bought an RO back in Jan of this year. How often are you supposed to change the filter? I just checked the PPM and its 9 PPM. Before it was 0 PPM. Is 9PPM still ok for watering CP's? What is the highest PPM that is still o.k to water CP's? I bought my RO system from filterdirect.com I didn't buy any extra filters. I use about 1-2 gallons of water a day. Thanks

I forgot to mention that the 1st filter is starting to change color. A yellowish color.



Zack

9 parts per million is fine. Sometimes the collected rainwater in my barrels outside registers at least 12 or 15. But it's good that you have a TDS meter. Water that is consistently below 50 ppm is best, and the lower it is, the better possibly, in the sense that it will add the least amount of dissolved solids to a growing medium that probably adds some soluble material itself. 9 ppm is good!

Steve_D wrote:9 parts per million is fine. Sometimes the collected rainwater in my barrels outside registers at least 12 or 15. But it's good that you have a TDS meter. Water that is consistently below 50 ppm is best, and the lower it is, the better possibly, in the sense that it will add the least amount of dissolved solids to a growing medium that probably adds some soluble material itself. 9 ppm is good!

Thanks a lot Steve.
I actually bought a TDS meter because you recommended that to me when I decided to order an RO system

ZackNJ wrote:I actually bought a TDS meter because you recommended that to me when I decided to order an RO system

I have a reverse-osmosis system too, although I usually use collected rainwater on the Flytraps. The membranes on a reverse osmosis system allow more soluble material through over time, but only little by little. The membrane on my RO unit is over a year old and is registering only 35 parts per million at this time (I just measured it with a TDS meter). That's pretty good considering the tap water running through the RO unit has a TDS of 245!

One thing to note is that you should change the sediment filter and carbon filter every six months. I dont believe that a TDS meter will register chlorine.