How to remove potassium from ground water or can a tarp be used to catch rainwater?

[slowcyclist]

Either or.

I have natural ground water but I think it contain too many minerals, particularly potassium, as I get just the same side effects as when I used to take potassium supplements. I filter already to make it drinkable but the filters keep the minerals as a 'feature'.

The main ones I have read are distillation and reverse osmosis to remove minerals. Both are too costly in one way or another. Distillation takes far too much electricity which would be out of the question during winter months, while RO too costly in water wastage which would likewise be unacceptable during the drought months in summer.

As I wrote it I did just think it could be possible to swap the method per season but in both cases they are a rather large financial investments so buying both would then be prohibitively expensive. The RO is not so bad but the distillers are over a grand for any decent output one from what I saw.

Any other methods to get rid of potassium from the ground water in a cost effective manner?

Alternatively, having found out that rainwater is naturally distilled and devoid of minerals I thought it would be a better and cheaper idea to catch it before it hits the ground.

I have 2x 20ft tarps which I haven't used yet and was wondering if I can use one/both as a liner to make a small reservoir. I have heavy clay soil and already made a pond with no liner from that but as above it will leech the minerals into the water.

I could probably get a 'real' liner which would be cheaper than either of the above however I want to know if I can use these tarps that I have already. My concern is that the tarp material may leach microplastics. This is not so much an issue for me since my water filters are rated to remove microplastics. I do wonder if this would be bad for wildlife though as recently ducks have come to the existing clay pond so would not want them being harmed by it. Probably not going to be a significant health burden to them?

[Jdsk]

1 I'd get a proper analysis before any intervention to make the water drinkable.

2 How much water will you try to harvest from rain?

Jonathan

[Paulatic]

“Natural Ground Water” Are you describing a spring? Or another source.

I’d choose a spring over rain water anyday.

Back in the eighties and the trend for buying spring water in plastic bottles appeared to be growing we looked into bottling, for retail,our spring water on the farm. Duly sent away some samples to a lab and the results came back it was unfit to drink .
Generations have drank that water tracing the site back as far as the Knights Templars and I carried on drinking it for the next 25 years and never ailed a thing. If the puddocks were alive and well I was happy.

[roubaixtuesday]

No point in trying to remove minerals without knowing what levels are. Get an analysis if concerned.

Potassium seems quite an unlikely concern to me, unless related to agricultural runoff??

[geocycle]

I'd be very careful with rainwater. It is not really 'distilled' although does have an ultimate origin from the ocean via evaporation. If it were pure H2O it would have a pH of 7.0, instead the average in the UK is 5.0-5.5 due to interactions with acid compounds of N and S in the atmosphere. In some areas it can even carry small concentrations of N, P and K from fertilisers in addition to dust and other solids. Springs tend have higher pH due to dissolution of alkaline earth elements and salts, it depends exactly on the geology. In most case I would expect K to be higher in groundwater springs than rainwater.

[rjb]

If you have a dehumidifier it sucks clean water out of the air. I was told it was perfect for topping up your car battery at a fraction the price of distilled water.
BTW are you sure it's Potassium and not Phosphates from agricultural run off.

[Jdsk]

Ditto for the water condensed as ice in a deep freeze. But in either case it can be contaminated by the surface or by the process of removal.

Jonathan