How to Deal with Hard Water

So you have hard water coming through your pipes?

Hard water can be hard on a garden, just like it can be tough on clothes, kitchen equipment and anything else that you expose to this type of water. With higher amounts of things like calcium and magnesium, hard water eventually manifests a kind of scum or buildup that looks kind of unattractive. But with hydroponics, the problem is that these contaminants can interfere with the proper delivery of nutrient-rich water to plants.

So how do you deal with hard water?

First, you can get a water softener system that works on the basic of ion exchange. Ion exchangers remove calcium and magnesium while adding differently charged particles to the water, namely, sodium. Home water softener is a way to effectively get rid of hard water so that it is easier to source water for a hydroponic garden.

In terms of mitigating hard water for laundry, you can use different kinds of soaps and detergents, but that's really not going to affect your gardening water. You'll still have the high levels of calcium and magnesium in the water.

In a lot of cases, growers basically source water that is high quality, clean water that will have a good effect on plants. For instance, growers might buy distilled water -- distillation eliminates different kinds of contaminants from the water. In other words, some growers will say they won't use their common tap water to irrigate plants. Instead, they'll truck some other water source in to make sure that the water that they use is higher quality.

Dealing with hard water is just one aspect of getting the right chemical compositions in the reservoir. Growers have to look out for things like pH value and total dissolved solids. They have to look for algae buildup, root rot, and mold. They have to keep temperature and humidity right to make sure plants have a good environment. All of these things can be labor-intensive and require some complex planning. Growers also have to look at the structure of the system and how light is getting to plants. They have to know a little bit about nutrient chemistry. The list kind of goes on and on. That's why Dealzer has created a library of resources online for growers. We want you to be able to use the things that you bought to create great hydro gardens. Stick around our site and learn more about how hydroponics works.