Water Quality
Water Quality 

For most people in the United States city water is ok for drinking but not good enough for hydroponics, the best water quality for hydroponics is one that has no mineral content.  We can easily test the water using a TDS meter; TDS stands for TOTAL DISSOLVED SOLIDS. The TDS meter measures the amount of solids in PPM (parts per million), it also reads the EC or (Electrical Conductivity). The picture below shows what a TDS and PH meters look like.
TDS meter
pH meter
A TDS and PH Meters are a must in hydroponics, however they are not included in our starter kit, to keep cost down, our starter kit comes with the exact nutrient mix for use with distilled water and it’s not needed for your first kit. I do highly recommend purchasing them if you decide you want to continue expanding your hydroponics area,
Bell Pepper plant in hydroponic room

Left: Green and Red Peppers in the hydroponic test room with low lighting.


Water quality varies greatly from city to city and knowing what is in your water is the most ideal way to adjust your nutrients for best results, however this procedure is best used in large hydroponic bays to adjust the nutrients for the specific plant that they are growing, it also requires a more advance level that is not necessary for the average joe that wants to grow a variety of plants with good yields.
The higher the TDS in the initial water that you are using the more difficult it is to have a good harvest. however this can be remedied by simply lowering your ph.  Water that has a TDS higher than 350, is very poor and using it would be detrimental to your crop yield. 

Water that has a High TDS is referred to as hard water, hard water has carbonates that choke the roots of the plants and this is why maintaining a lower Ph. helps improve the plants growth, the lower Ph. helps dissolve some of the carbonates. However Lowering the Ph has its limits since doing so can also impact which nutrients the plants absorb. Some nutrient providers have nutrients specifically for use with hard water.   
recommended pH adjustment table for hard water
Chlorine, Calcium, Lime, Iron and Sulfur are just a few of the elements in your city and well water. 

The best water to start with is distilled or rain water especially for the newbie, For one it is readily available and has no mineral contents to start with, It is however impractical for most people because you don’t want to be hauling water, especially if you decide to have a hydroponics room. We have grown good crops with very hard water and very low ph. of 2.1 with good result.
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