2023 our new gardening adventure

[jjannie]

How much water does that hydroponic system hold?

20-21 gallons. To use our RO system we'd only get about 1 gal of water to 4 gallons wasted water - so its not efficient that way. So far though we've not had to add any water to it. Sunday will be our maintenance day on ours since its a day we are usually home at least for part of the day. So we'll check the water level and top it off a little while adding some of the nutrients and most likely more phdown into it. I will say our house more humid than usual so it must be using some of it.

RO system? Whatever it is, how does it waste 4 gal of water?

RO = Reverse Osmosis

I'll have Jeff explain it in a little while.... its just Greek to me,,,,

I understand how the RO system works but I don't see how it waste the water but I know it is a show process because of the membrane the water has to pass through. Our kids have an RO system up in Idaho and they have a 150 gal holding tank for the water once it goes through the system.

yes, that flushing out of the membrane is what creates the 'waste' water. In our system that is 4 gals of water to the 1 gal we get from it. There are pricier systems that can do it with less wasted water just not ours. We save the wasted water for other purposes and if you're on a sewer system it may just flush into it. But we are on a septic system so dumping it all in our tank may upset its balance and cause problems, so we collect it and use it up little by little for things that don't matter much if hard or soft water.