This is probably a numb question, and has to do with the recent sanderianum fertilizer thread on the forum. Like everyone else, I've been concerned about my tiny sanderianum seedling as well with hybrids made with sanderianum and want to flush out any salts that I may have in my potting mix. Distilled water was recommended for this task.

So, my impression of distilled water, and this is from eons ago high school chemistry class (or was it 8'th grade?), was that distilled water had to be boiled and the steam would go thru tubes, condense back into water again: and that would be distilled water. Well, when I asked a pharmicist at the local Rite Aide store where I could buy distilled water, he looked at me like I was from another planet and told me I could just buy it in plastic jugs at the supermarket.

Now, in my brain, bottled water is not distilled water. It is just bottled up from some tap at a processing plant and sold. It does not go thru the evaporation process as distilled water does. Am I missing something here? Was it me or the pharmacist?

Thanks. (Please don't laugh too hard) :embarass:

The druggest is correct. Look at the labels in the grocery store, many do have distilled as well as spring water. The distilled iis more expensive, some will be RO (reverse osmosis) which if pressure filtered through a membrane with holes small enough to remove the salt or mineral molecules.

Susan,
Correct, you should be able to get it at any grocery store. Poland Springs makes one - it has a bright blue "Distilled Water" label at the top and a clear cap. It's pricier than generic, but easier to find. Cheapest I've found is at the dreaded walmart, but if you really want to stock up, might be a good place to do it. I tend to cut w/ either half rain/fish/tap, half distilled, and then mess around to get my pH adjusted accordingly.

Thanks everyone! My daughter just told me (dumb mom) the same thing!! :lol:

I agree with the pharmacist as well! Pretty much every grocery store has it. A while back in chemistry, I remember my teacher saying that you really shouldn't drink distilled water because of it's tendency to leach salts from the body(although I know there are some medical conditions where the person should drink it). So I figure the same leaching effect is what's good for orchid roots occasionally. Why this is.... I have no idea, I think I remember something about osmotic pressure trying to equalize and something something something...

--Stephen

Ok, thanks all. I guess my powers of observation in the supermarket are just about nonexistant. :( I do tend to rush, get what I need, and get out ASAP!! I really hate grocery shopping. :Yuck:

Now, another question. I recently started watering using these pressurized weed spray devices that you can buy at *full Greek Chorus here* Home Depot. I like being able to pressurize it and then to spray the water into the growing media. I just bought another one yesterday which I plan to use only for the pure, distilled, water, for flushing and for spraying lightly over the plants to increase humidity.

Does anyone else water like this? I really like watering this way, as it is not that messy and is fun. Also is this how one flushes all the salts out of their plants by force spraying with pure water, or is something else, like soaking involved??

As usual, thanks for your answers!!!

Susan is also correct about the distilation process.

i.e. condesation of boiled off vapors. RO or deionizing processes are not distilation processes, but are often sold as distilled.

But "distilled" water is sold at grocery stores.


I use RO water from my lab for all my orchid watering, and fertilizer makeup. I have a pump spayer that I use for all my misting and hand watering.

I purchased a RO unit from Home Depot (about $200), but I have not hooked it up yet. Still easier to steal water from work.

(Off topic warning?) While we're "on" the subject of sprayers?

I have a pump sprayer also - about a year old. How do you guys clean the hoses? Mine is looking decidedly grimey! Algae, or something. Ick. Makes me not want to use it to water with!

Any ideas?

i have used mine for allitle over a year i havent looked at it ever let me know what you do with yours heather :unsure:

Nothing yet, that's why I ask! LOL!

Mine is a small hand held job without hoses, and doesn't seem to get grungy. But you could probably run a little physan thruogh it periodically. I add physan to the sump on my humidifier for my pleurothalids now and then, and it keeps the growth down in that very well.

Ok.. I be confused.. Arrr mateys. (oops wrong post) That was last week.

RO means Reverse Osmosis, Yes? I can understand that. If you have pure water surrounding a cell, and if the fluids in the inside of the cell membrane have minerals, salts, ect: the salts will flow thru the membrane into the pure water. I think that is how it must work. Almost like gravity.

So, with that in mind, I wonder whether you have to soak your plants in this pure, distilled, water, in order to have reverse osmosis take effect? Or, can you just blast your plants with this distilled water with a pressure sprayer to flush all the salts that have been building up? How do you folks do this??

Heather, I have not had my spray units for that long, so I cannot help you with the cruddy hoses. I would think that physan would be a great idea. Also, somewhere waaayy back there was a thread about some sort of grass that would stop algae cold that was used in ponds. For the life of me, I forget the name right now, but it is on the tip of my tongue!!! So frustrating. My local nursery sells it for ponds. I think it might be called Barley Grass.

Come to think of it, I do not have Physan. Where do you get it??

In any event, I would imagine that soaking the hoses in a mix of that and flushing a solution of it thru the system, would clean it up just fine.

Susan,

I am just guessing here, but it seems like you would probably want to soak. By blasting the water past the roots, the water molecules probably wouldn't really have enough time to intereact with the roots to leach salts out.

Susan
RO and distilled water are equivalent in quality. Neither has any salts in them. They are just two different water purification systems. To make things more confusing you could also add mixed bed deioniztion to the list. This method uses anion and cation exchange resins in combination to remove salts. Its not as effective as RO or distillation.

RO means you actually move water against the osmotic gradient. Which means you use high pressure (from an internal pump) to push the water through an ion retaining membrane, leaving a high concentration of salts behind (as reject waste)

The condition you described (in cells and substrate) is regular osmosis, where water flows from a low salt concentration to the high salt concentraion, which in effect dilutes the salts in the high concentration area.

Thanks Marcus.

I was thinking along those those lines as well. I guess doing both would not hurt.

Rick,

Are you saying to soak my plants, like Marcus just suggested??? I can do that!

Thanks..

I cannot believe that I can get so confused about something as basic as water!!

Ok.. I be confused.. Arrr mateys. (oops wrong post) That was last week.


OMG, for some reason, that made me laugh until I had tears.
Someone else relapsed the other day, and I laughed a little, but this really sent me over the edge.

I'll try running some physan though my sprayer.
I think I got my physan from KK, Susan so you might be able to pick some up on Saturday from them if you wish.

Susan
If you think youv'e built up some salts in your mix it wouldn't hurt to do a soak every now and then. I generally don't, but lots of people do with good results.

Thanks, Rick.

Most of my plants have been recently repotted into a mix of my own making, so I don't think I have too much salt build up. Some will get soaked, however. My way too expensive teeny-weeny sanderianum seedling will get a good soak. I thought it looked good, as it was the color of every one else's sands. HA! :ohmy:


This really is a great forum. Probably one of the best on the internet. I never would have learned so much, so quickly, anywhere else. :clap: :clap: