Gurjeet, just knowing that the water is soft is not sufficient. when I was in London, I had a chat with my uncle and he informed me that the water is softened using Sodium Na cation exchange. Basically soft water does not mean good water, a 10% solution of NaCl will be chharacterised as soft water but it will kill your plants. Also if your water is sofened using Sodium, boiling it will not help. The only way you can be sure is to use some kind of water quality test. The best will be the use of a conductivity meter, that will calculate the amount of dissolved solutes in the water based on the electrical conductivity of the water. The only way out is the use of distilled or RO water which is free of any ions, then you can dilute your tap water with such RO water.
Quote Originally Posted by Gurj View Post
Thank you for this post Amey. I have checked the council website and the water we get is categorised as soft. But still, I have decided to boil cool it. What sort of nutrient would you recommend? Shall I stick to the conventional orchid fertilisers or strictly use fertilisers meant to be used for hydroponics?