Safety of Rain water
- Thread starter Mortalis
- Start date
Klytus
Omono
I dunno,radon,legionella,mould spores and the like.
Our bonsai in the US never succumb to these maladies. British bonsai must have a piss poor Constitution.
serpentsgarden
Sapling
concept for water storage
Use nature. Get a good kidex barrel or two. Let them be the storage add goldfish and water lillies to and viola natural water purifier. The sand in the bottom and the lillies will reduce most pollution for. You get beauty and pure water The fish will keep the water bacteria sound and stable. Just make sure to poke holes through the ice in the winter to keep the fish alive and they will do the work for you. Charcoal will also just by being in contact absorb most all pollution. Even most heavy metals. It will allow some alkalines through though so if you have a high alkalinity area then some industries could pose a threat but generally if this were in the air you would have a reactivity in the ground as well. Acid rain is something i have never seen but i live in the evergreen state. Rain water is like ice to an eskimo here. If i could bottle and send it to you and not cost me and arm and a leg i would let you have it. I had our water tested. In the city the count was disgusting 30 miles away and it as pure as nature can provide mostly do to trees and old growth forests all around everywhere here. I woud try several collection sites if you can and try to choose area heavily wooded as trees do most of the work for you before it is an issue. A condenser unit could help and collect water all the time for you. I think you need a 14 degree difference in air temp to condenser temp to do this though.
Use nature. Get a good kidex barrel or two. Let them be the storage add goldfish and water lillies to and viola natural water purifier. The sand in the bottom and the lillies will reduce most pollution for. You get beauty and pure water The fish will keep the water bacteria sound and stable. Just make sure to poke holes through the ice in the winter to keep the fish alive and they will do the work for you. Charcoal will also just by being in contact absorb most all pollution. Even most heavy metals. It will allow some alkalines through though so if you have a high alkalinity area then some industries could pose a threat but generally if this were in the air you would have a reactivity in the ground as well. Acid rain is something i have never seen but i live in the evergreen state. Rain water is like ice to an eskimo here. If i could bottle and send it to you and not cost me and arm and a leg i would let you have it. I had our water tested. In the city the count was disgusting 30 miles away and it as pure as nature can provide mostly do to trees and old growth forests all around everywhere here. I woud try several collection sites if you can and try to choose area heavily wooded as trees do most of the work for you before it is an issue. A condenser unit could help and collect water all the time for you. I think you need a 14 degree difference in air temp to condenser temp to do this though.
serpentsgarden
Sapling
I think the other guy had a valid point with saying if you water is not killing you then it wont kill your trees. And in the desert well water is usually undrinkable due to gypsum in the sand leaching into the ground water but it has no effect on the plant life just makes animals go insane and die. You have so many avenues to get pure water but if you live near any plants that do chrome dipping coal burning or anodization of metals then i would move before you get cancer and take your trees with. The worst areas for pollution counts are in the southwest US they have a lot of coal and burn it like its out of style. Once i moved to washington with my trees i says a dramatic improvement in all areas. I lived 120 miles from the plant in crown point and it was undergoing a scrubber refit to save the agricultural areas of the navajo nation. COAL burning will do much worse to you than the trees. Think of your heath too =) Frogs are good to see if they are healthy your rain water will most definetly not harm your trees as they are the first to die on most ecosystems as they osmose water into their bodies through the skin. Collect frogs. If you find them your safe for sure NATURE provides us with all the clues we just stepped to far out of the cave to see it is all.
Mojosan
Mame
Pinenut
Seedling
Rain water is the best!!!
Since collecting and using only rain water now, all of my bonsai and pots have never looked better....but it always wasn’t that way. When I was living in the Chicago suburbs I used “city water” that came from Lake Michigan
and my bonsai did well, so I thought. After I learned how most city water was treated I had seconds thoughts on
using it. I then tried RO (reverse osmosis) water and noticed little effect. Since then, I moved to rural west central Michigan and had to use well water which had the biggest effect on my bonsai. Growth was more lush and the Autumn colors on my maples was the best I’ve ever seen however there was one side effect that made me look elsewhere for my bonsai water source. The side effect was a white residue that was collecting on trees and pots. It appeared that the source of the water in my well was from a mineral spring at 128 ft....which had a pH of 7 and a total hardness of over 425 ppm. (very hard water).
Most of my trees at first had little negative effect of the hard water except for my ezo spruce and sekka hinoki which were showing signs of stress. My pots were also showing heavy mineral deposits which looked unsightly. I did some research on the long term effects of very hard water on bonsai trees and it wasn’t good. That’s when I decided to test my rain water and was pleasantly surprised. The rain in my area of Michigan had a pH of 6 and a total hardness of zero! While the rain water was slightly acetic (which my conifers liked), the water was very soft with zero mineral deposits.
I now have two 65 gallon rain barrels by EarthMinded, made from durable food grade HDPE resin in USA. Both barrels are connected together which diverts rain from my gutter. With as little as 1”-2” of rain, both barrels are filled quickly and I have a renewable source of pure rain water for all my bonsai.
I have since had the water tested for any possible roof containment’s which none could be found. My bonsai have never looked as good with the change over to collected rain water.
Since collecting and using only rain water now, all of my bonsai and pots have never looked better....but it always wasn’t that way. When I was living in the Chicago suburbs I used “city water” that came from Lake Michigan
and my bonsai did well, so I thought. After I learned how most city water was treated I had seconds thoughts on
using it. I then tried RO (reverse osmosis) water and noticed little effect. Since then, I moved to rural west central Michigan and had to use well water which had the biggest effect on my bonsai. Growth was more lush and the Autumn colors on my maples was the best I’ve ever seen however there was one side effect that made me look elsewhere for my bonsai water source. The side effect was a white residue that was collecting on trees and pots. It appeared that the source of the water in my well was from a mineral spring at 128 ft....which had a pH of 7 and a total hardness of over 425 ppm. (very hard water).
Most of my trees at first had little negative effect of the hard water except for my ezo spruce and sekka hinoki which were showing signs of stress. My pots were also showing heavy mineral deposits which looked unsightly. I did some research on the long term effects of very hard water on bonsai trees and it wasn’t good. That’s when I decided to test my rain water and was pleasantly surprised. The rain in my area of Michigan had a pH of 6 and a total hardness of zero! While the rain water was slightly acetic (which my conifers liked), the water was very soft with zero mineral deposits.
I now have two 65 gallon rain barrels by EarthMinded, made from durable food grade HDPE resin in USA. Both barrels are connected together which diverts rain from my gutter. With as little as 1”-2” of rain, both barrels are filled quickly and I have a renewable source of pure rain water for all my bonsai.
I have since had the water tested for any possible roof containment’s which none could be found. My bonsai have never looked as good with the change over to collected rain water.
I use rain collected water for my trees. I might not HAVE to but I do for many reasons and see the improvements to my trees. I to have hard PH 8 well water. I have a pretty elaborate system in which I collect the rainwater and store it in large interconnected stock tanks. I use a pump and pressure tank and a hose from there. no real filter except a debris filter. From what I understand most pollutants come from the first few gallons that come off of a roof. A google search will reveal unsophisticated reasonably priced diverters that expel the first few gallons of the roof water. I actually never bought one but have been considering it being I live by a dirt road and road dust trace does get in the tanks. I clean the tanks out every year. I love my rain water.
JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
Me too!
I use mainly collected water, I'm on a well, and don't want to use that water.
Klytus
Omono
How do you manage drawing your,possibly the,water from a well?
Drinking from a well is like hmm i'm not thirsty anymore.
I gave up on bottled water,except in hotels.
Drinking from a well is like hmm i'm not thirsty anymore.
I gave up on bottled water,except in hotels.
Last edited:
