Water from the sump pump?

[kwende]

Okay. So. I went to the store this afternoon and purchased five gallons of distilled water. As I was walking out it dawned on me that my folks have a sump pump under their house that pumps gallons of waters out a day. My Mom typically uses the water on her flowers, or to fill up a pond they have, or - well - her dogs just drink from it. So I got to wondering...

Does anyone have any idea of good testing kits to use to verify the water is safe for carnivorous plants? I know nothing about water purity other than to "only use distilled water" on the carnivorous plants. So perhaps the water coming from the ground is just as evil as that which comes from the tap? I don't know....

Most of the time her water just gets dumped back into the ground, all the while I'm spending money on buckets of water. It seems silly to not at least check the quality of the water to see if I can use it on my (rapidly growing) plant collection....

....also, yes I know I can buy a RO machine online or on eBay. I had begun kicking around the idea as a means to save some money and trips to the store. But - still - if perfectly good, free water is being pumped out of the ground a day, I would be foolish not to use it.

[Aidan]

Metal salts, notably Calcium and Magnesium are the major concern and may be tested for using a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter. A reading of 50ppm (parts per million) or lower is generally considered ideal though you can probably get away with up to 100ppm.

[kwende]

Thanks. I'll pick one up.

Cheers.

[jdallas]

A great way to get an inexpensive TDS meter if you're in the U.S. is to buy a ZeroWater filter pitcher. These can be found and many retailers these days, and they give you a TDS meter when you buy the pitcher. ZeroWater uses an ion exchange filter and takes all dissolved solids out of the water. I bought one two years ago just to see what they were like, and ended up getting their larger water dispenser unit because I was so impressed with them. ZeroWater is a great option if you only need to purify a small amount of water at a time, and has no waste like there is with reverse osmosis. ZeroWater will even send you coupons if you recycle the filters.

I would say that if you are below 50ppm you'll be fine with whatever your water source is. 100 is getting a bit high, especially if you are watering Venus flytraps or sundews. Sarracenia, Nepenthes, and Mexican butterworts are much less sensitive. Our first year at our rural location using our well water (at the time we had no other options) we lost close to 25% of our flytraps from hard water damage. Dark red forms such as Akai Ryu seem especially sensitive. Our well water is around 100 - 130ppm depending on rainfall. If you're right in that 50ppm zone you may just need to repot your plants more often, or be sure to top-water flush with purified water periodically.

Jeff