best way to get RO water?

I run hydro with well water, my ppms out the tap is about 400 and I'm not having any problems. Your money is better spent elsewhere.

I agree with a lot of Papa_T says. I have only ever used tap to grow and have no main issues with it. Papa_T's PPM on tap is really clean too. Mine sits around 130ppm, RO is nice but its a wasteful product. it makes 2x waste for 1x product after filtration so a lot of water down the drain. Filters for home units will need replacing but its all based on how hard the water going in is. Plus RO water is aggressive as fuck and will eat up anything touching it like metal. Its why they only use plastic tubes and pipes on RO systems. Other option is collecting rain water but if you live in a city the rain coming down might be a bit more acidic and filled with some other pollutants. If your municipality used Chloramine it can be denatured using vit c aka ascorbic acid. found at most bulk/hippy stores for making sour candy or wine/beer brewing places. It will break the bonds and allow it to off gas, however I had not has issues with this and my tap 100% has it in the water supply.

You can buy a machine that cleans your tap water but that comes with headaches down the road. Or you can find a Walmart or someplace that sells 5 gallon water cooler jugs of RO. RO isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be. Be careful, do not try to stick your PH pen in straight RO. There’s nothing in the water and your PH meter will aimlessly drift. It can also damage your meter. So if you’ve stuck your meter in straight RO it’s probably best to recalibrate and not try to measure PH in straight RO water. Once you put nutrients in the water that’s fine to test and adjust PH. Honestly when I was a new grower I was all about the RO until I realized it was more work than it was worth. My tap water comes out at 59-62 PPM so I just use that once I bleed off the chlorine by letting it sit. I would test your tap water and if it’s suitable just use that. Unless your community uses Chloramine to treat the water, in that case Chloramine doesn’t bleed out of water like chlorine does. If your tap water is a bit high in PPM you can always try to filter it with a Brita filter to clean up a bit. You’d be surprised how much a Brita filter reduces the PPM.