Questions about water quality...

[james mickelso]

You don't need to use all RO. You can blend it to suit your needs.

[NYCorchidman]

I don't think RO water is for sale unless you meant distilled water.

To get RO water, you have to install the whole system in your house I think.

[flexdc]

NY I think the filter water you see for sale is RO water not distilled water. NYC water is insanely good however. When I lived there the few paphs I had all bloomed on queue!
Andrew

[NYCorchidman]

Really? I will have to go check at the nearest Duane Reades tomorrow just to fill my curiosity. I thought I was a label saying distilled water on those large plastic jugs. but I've never bought any of those myself so never paid real close attention to them.

NYC water source is supposedly great.
It's th old pipes of certain part of the cities and buildings that ruin the quality.
Luckily, I live in a new building and my tap water has been good to me and my orchids. lol

How's water in LA?

[flexdc]

NY let me put it this way, Paphs will never flower here using out tab water.
I have RO at home and reserve that for my paphs
Andrew

[james mickelso]

Out here in SoCal you can buy good RO water right out of a machine in front of grocery and drug stores. Here in company is called Glacier Water. $.25 to $.35 per gallon. Not cheap but then I blend and dip my orchids in a bucket full of that.

[Discus]

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

I don't think RO water is for sale unless you meant distilled water.

To get RO water, you have to install the whole system in your house I think.

No, you can definitely buy RO water; many aquarium stores sell it, particularly for marine tanks, and a lot of places sell it as drinking water. It's generally quite a bit cheaper than distilled water. The energy inputs are lower, so it generally costs less to make. Generally, distilled water is purer, but there are some amazing lab grade RO units that make incredibly pure water. (Milli-Q - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Almost any RO water is better than almost any tap water.

If you use a lot of it, or get sick of hauling tons of water around, you can install an RO unit in your home. Lots of people sell them.

[JKeys]

Yes, I am getting an additions onto my house (new kitchen) and we may be installing a RO unit.

[JanS]

To me, RO or rainwater is a must for good orchid growth. My collection comprises of a range of orchids from Home Depot hand-me-downs to plants that I know came directly from specimens collected from the jungle in the past. Before using RO water there were definite differences in how the various plants thrived. I would say the super hybridized HD orchids are the toughest in terms of water quality tolerance and did OK, but the jungle-past ones did the worst. (our tap water sucks - has 370-420 ppm TSS.) Switching to "distilled" water made a HUGE difference for all my plants.

I am presently using the portable ZeroWater filter system which works great...BUT: has become very expensive due to a redesign of their filters that now last considerably shorter than before and are expensive. In addition, many peoples' comments on Amazon suggest that ZeroWater sells refurbished filters through Amazon for cheaper than when bought locally but doesn't let on that these are not new, and they apparently last even shorter. So we're planning to install a whole house system soon. That way we can drink the good water as well, not just my orchids!

[DavidCampen]

What type of whole house system?