Bore Water Quality

Bore water might have a lot of different uses, drinking, bottling, garden, landscaping. house stabilization, livestock, irrigation, aquaculture and chemical mixing. 

All of these activities have different tolerances to chemical levels in water. Even different plants and different animals can have very different tolerances.

Bore water that might not be suitable for drinking might work for the garden or irrigation. Water might be suitable for stock although different stock are tolerant to different chemical levels.

Typically the chemicals of concern are salts. Most will know sea salt (Sodium Chloride) but salts also include calcium, magnesium and potassium. These are measured in electrical conductivity or part per million. This is usually the standard against which suitability is assessed. But other factors can matter as well, elevated chloride levels can be critical for plant and stock health, carbonates and bicarbonates can be important for irrigation and corrosiveness.

For chemical mixing the solubility of the chemical can be affected by water quality, some bore waters are not suitable to chemical mixing at all.

Unlike other water testers we advise you what the results mean. We get that a lot of people don’t understand the chemicals and the numbers so we tell you what they means and we assess the results against your intended use to see if the water is suitable.

We can even help you pick a water treatment if one is required. 

And before you put in a bore you might want to talk to us too, we’ve got a pretty good database on ground water quality around Victoria.

Case studies where poor quality bore water has had an impact:

• Race horses slow performing and lacking stamina in races due to salt content
• Cattle misbehaving and twitchy due to high magnesium in water
• Berries dying off late season
• Grapes not fruiting properly due to high chloride
• Landscape garden plants dying off 
• Irrigator nozzles blocking due to bicarbonate build up
• Bore water contamination due to mining activity
• Soil becoming alkaline due to calcium

Click here to send in a sample for testing