What water do you use to water your cacti?

[Snowcat]

There is a huge buzz among russian cacti lovers about what kind of water should be used. Some even collect rain water and use it for watering.

What water do you use for watering? Do you control it's PH regularily? Do you soften it somehow?

[majcka]

I use mostly rain water for my cacti and succulents. If I by any chance ran out....then I use an ordinary water from a pipe.

[Harriet]

Rain water. (I add some fertilizer to make a very diluted solution.) Since it's Florida, I rarely run out, but plain old tap water if it does, or if my pump quits working.

[Snowcat]

Do you live in an own house or in a city flat? It is VERY problematic to collect water if you live in a regular city block... Besides, rain in a big city is not that clean. Though I am not sure it will really hurt plants...

[hoteidoc]

Depends on where H20 comes from, SnowCat, might be "6 of one, 1/2 dozen of another"! Supposedly many cacti like slightly acidic H20, so guessing your rain will probably be acidic along with a few other things! And source & delivering piping might have "other" problems! Tough call..

[Steve Johnson]

Depends on where H20 comes from, SnowCat, might be "6 of one, 1/2 dozen of another"! Supposedly many cacti like slightly acidic H20, so guessing your rain will probably be acidic along with a few other things! And source & delivering piping might have "other" problems! Tough call..

Not a tough call for me -- California is and always has been a drought state. Year-to-year rainwater supplies in L.A. are at best unreliable, so I haven't even bothered to set up rain barrels. Such being the case, my only choice is to use the water coming from my municipal system. Our tap water is hard, so I've been acidifying it with vinegar for over 2 years. Ever since I started the practice, the improvement in my plants has been amazing.

By the way, California is experiencing its worst drought in recorded history (going back 100 years). The authorities in Sacramento may impose mandatory water rationing this year, although it'll be neither the first nor the last time for us Californians.

[hoteidoc]

Most of my Life has been 'make do", Steve! (have been following CA's H20 situation). Next step to any "make do" situation is investigate to see if it can be improved -- inexpensively! Has been especially true when I 1st got "sucked in" to these crazy plants with no job & no $$! Thank God for the sharing on CF -- & the need to "give back" if possible! So back to SnowCat: It would probably be worth a few RUB to have a simple standard H20 test for pH, alkalinity, & particulates (unless you have a H20 chemistry friend) to see if anything needs to be "done"

[CactusFanDan]

Tap water for me, although I think the phosphate and nitrogen content in my water is quite high, so I'll try to transition to rainwater at some point. Other than the N and P content, the pH and hardness are quite desirable in my area. Nice, soft, acidic water. If you have rainwater available, always use it. Rainwater will be slightly acidic and might contain heavy metals and carbon particulates in most big cities, but not enough to harm your plants.

[DaveW]

Rainwater now, but have used tap water in the past. I believe tap water was intentionally made alkaline so it does not corrode lead or copper pipes. However what tap water you get depends on where you live since in "hard water" areas it can be very alkaline. See acidifying tap water here:-

http://ralph.cs.cf.ac.uk/cacti/Cactus%2 ... linity.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[oldcat61]

We're lucky to have a well, which is acid. My husband tee-ed off the GH before the water treatment equipment so the buffered water goes to the house but the cactus can enjoy the acid water straight. Easy solution, since I'm way too lazy to water except by a big spray wand. Sue

[Snowcat]

Ok I've got it, thanks everyone for your replies, that was very useful!

[cactushobbyman]

Well water. No rain to speak of this year, so why try to collect. Anyway, the Central Valley is almost a desert anyway, average 11.25" per year. This year so far, .75 inches.

[r_shazrin]

I leave my cactus out in the rain (I almost never have to water unless I am feeding). The only ones that stays on the porch out of the rain is the lithops and conos. But I live in Malaysia so it might be different from where you guys are.

[DaveW]

Yes I believe leaving cacti out in a rainstorm is supposedly more beneficial than watering with rainwater from a water butt since rainwater looses certain elements in storage and they get direct rather than stored rainwater in habitat?

[Steve Johnson]

Yes I believe leaving cacti out in a rainstorm is supposedly more beneficial than watering with rainwater from a water butt since rainwater looses certain elements in storage and they get direct rather than stored rainwater in habitat?

I don't know the chemistry behind it, but yes -- rainwater will go from acid to pH-neutral over time. In the desert, thunderstorm activity produces the most significant amounts of natural acidity, but I don't know how long it takes for that rainwater to lose its acidity. Although I think acidification is used primarily to combat the deleterious effects of hard water, I wonder if a small degree of acidification could be helpful in growing cacti with stored rainwater. Worth investigating at least?