Soft Water? Is It Usable?

buntaro san

I have a water softener in my home and haven't been using the tap water to water my indoor trees for fear that the softened water would have an ill effect on my them. The water is well water, so no chlorine or flouride, etc. that may have been added by a city water system.
I have a spigot in the garage that comes off of the main water supply before it hits the softener, which I have been using, but it's kind of difficult to use during the winter, the garage is unheated and Iowa gets pretty cold in the winter. Any thoughts??

Thanks, Buntaro

p.s. On further consideration, Iowa gets really cold during the winter.

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Adam_MA

Buntaro,
From what I have heard... The salt used in your water softener will eventually build up in the soil and become deadly for your bonsai. Although it does get cold there, I would use the garage option if it were me. You could also fill a couple of gallon containers at once to minimize your trips to the cold garage... Or maybe just melt some snow on your stove?


Adam

RWillieK

I buy Reverse Osmosis water for my salt water fish tank.....so I just use that on mine. Usually grocery stores have water like that - usually less than $3 for five gallons.

Robbie

buntaro san

Bottled water or filling up a few gallons at a time it will be then. Thanks for the info about the soft water, I had suspicions along those lines but some confirmation is nice.
As far as melting snow, I'm not going out to get snow, the dreaded "Cornfield" subspecies of the polar bear might get me! Not to mention the cruel, slashing beaks of those pesky penguins!

Buntaro San, sitting inside, gazing at his tropical midget trees

FredL

Buntaro, as I recall from many years ago, commercial water softeners replace Calcium ions in your water with Sodium. This is very detrimental, even fatal to plants watered with the softened water.

Fred

rockm

Spending money on bottled water for your bonsai is a little extravagant and probably very unecessary. The water softener you use is probably inappropriate for watering your plants, but the unmodified water from the garage should be fine, unless you're growing lime sensitive plants like azalea and camelia and that water is extremely hard.

Bottled water, aside from being expensive, can be filtered of minerals, or even completely without them if it is distilled. No mineral content is a bad thing. Plants depend on some mineral content of the water.

pdbbonsai

Just before the softener in my house I have another spigot just for this purpose (watering my trees). If at all possible just put another valve in.

Also, maybe someone could tell me. I use Potassium Chloride as a softening agent as opposed to the Sodium variety. Once in a blue moon, the trees get a soaking of this, not for any reason other than not thinking about the softener.

Is the Potassium chloride something I want to be giving the trees?

Paul

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IdahoBonsai

The way a softener works, as explained to me by the person that sold us ours (Culligan) is this: There is a tank of resin. The raw water passes over the resin. The resin attracts the calcium particles out of the water. Over time the resin gets bound up in calcium particals. In the mean time a separate reservour has a solution of salt brine in the ready. Periodically (either on a schedule or based on demand, like ours) the salt brine is washed over the resin bed to dislodge the calcium and wash it down the drain. The resin bed is then rinsed with the raw water again to eliminate the salt brine. It was explained that a very small amount of salt might remain.

Whether this quantity is enough to cause damage or not I cannot say for certain. I do know that the TDS was not reduced, so maybe that is the clue. I do know that if the TDS was high enough to desire a softener, it is probably not fit for watering plants in a pot either.

I would be interested in learning about the Potasium method as well and its effect on potted plants.

As far as purchasing RO water goes, I believe the cost of systems adaquate for watering plants or water changes for fish are very low compared to the cost of buying it. If you are spending more than a hundred dollars or so a year on water, you would be better served by having your own. They are quite common on eBay and other sources.

I also know that the water you buy out of machines at the grocery store or other places is no more than carbon filtered to remove taste and odor issues. There is no way an RO system could keep up with the demand of that venue. It MAY be deionized, but I doubt it.

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Steven

South Central Idaho

ctasell

buy a 55 gal plastic drum put a spigot on it and hook up a hose to it ,, fill it up and keep it in the garage that should last you almost all winter to water your plants that way you dont have to keep the valve open that is connected to the plumbing in you house during the winter,so then it wont freeze ,,and the plastic drum should do ok in the gargage even if it does get cold