Distilled water

[gabi_borza]

Hi again. I have a question for you. At my working place (I'm a PhD student in veterinary medicine) I have a machine that makes distilled water. I've always used tap water for my orchids, but I've read that distilled water is better for them. What is your opinion about this?

[TorontoMichael]

Rain water might be better than distilled!

Distilled has everything taken out of it! It's close to sanitized water!

And if your worried about your tap water being overly chlorinated just let it sit overnight and it'll clear that up!

[orchidlady]

Distilled water can be used, but you have to be sure to use a very complete fertilizer or the plants will suffer nutritional deficiencies. It may take some time and experimentation to come up with the right formula.

Susan

[gabi_borza]

Thank you for your answers. I do let the water stay for about 2-3 days before I use it on my plants. Nothing has gone wrong so far, so I think I'll keep using the tap water.
Best regards, Gabi Borza.

[Halloamey]

Hi Gabriel ! I have used distilled water from my Plant molecular biology lab for the entire last year. It works really fine, I mixed it at the ratio of 20% tap water and 80% dH2O. Mix in a fertilizer with Ca and Mg if your water is poor in them, but from what I have experienced most European waters are hard and abundant in Ca and Mg.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Interesting topic. Thanks for the info.

cheers,
BD

[uscalus storm]

I'm assuming you still use fertilizer with rain water right?

[gabi_borza]

Yes, I use fertilizer on a regular basis. My plants are doing well, and I don't see any mineral deposits on the bark (at least not yet ). I think I'll keep watering them just the way I did so far.