Question
I'm using bottled sodium-free distilled water on my Nepenthes.  I ran a water test on the distilled water and it came up as 40 ppm (the tap water right from the faucet is 50 ppm.)  I thought distilled water was supposed to be much, much softer than tap water?  Should I just rely on tap water since there's so little difference?  Try another brand of distilled water?

Answer
Hello Steven,

Actually both your tap and the bottles water your using are suitable for carnivorous plants of most any species. 50 ppm is the upper limit for Venus Flytraps and Sundews while Sarracenias, Nepenthes, and Butterworts can handle somewhat higher levels of mineral additives.

Your quite lucky that you have tap water that soft, mine is upwards around 240 ppm, good for knocking my teeth out, but little else.

Even lower hardness water can be found in reverse osmosis machines. It is odd that your distilled water has any solid particles in it at all since distilled water is supposed to be almost pure water, nothing else.

Christopher