Bottle 2 (middle bottle): We only used tap water filtered through a standard carbon-type filter in this bottle. This is the type of filter usually in a public water fountain, in a refrigerator, or a Brita water filter.
Bottle 3 (bottle to the far right): We only used tap water filtered through a countertop reverse osmosis filter in this bottle.
The Results
As you can see in the above photo, the plants in the tap water and filtered water bottles look almost identical. However, the plant in the reverse osmosis water bottle is almost twice the size of the other two!
The Good News
There’s nothing in our tap water that was able to kill the plant in bottle 1 (at least not yet.)
The Bad News
There’s definitely something in our tap water that’s significantly stunting the growth of the plant in bottle 1. And apparently, whatever that something is that’s not being filtered out with a basic Brita filter, hence the stunted growth of the plant in bottle 2.
Conclusion
You can make whatever conclusion you’d like from our plant and water experiment, but we decided that it’s yet another reason not to drink tap water. Try this experiment at home! We’d love to hear the results.
May 23, 2017 Update!
A month and a half ago, we posted the results of our year long water experiment (above.) Today, we noticed that the plant in the tap water bottle lost all of its leaves!
In the photo below you’ll see the three bottles with different types of water in each:
Bottle 1 (bottle to the far left): We only used good ol’ Florida tap water straight from the sink in this bottle.
Bottle 2 (middle bottle): We only used tap water filtered through a standard carbon-type filter in this bottle. This is the type of filter usually in a public water fountain, in a refrigerator, or a Brita water filter.
Bottle 3 (bottle to the far right): We only used tap water filtered through a countertop reverse osmosis filter in this bottle.
Updated Conclusion
You can make whatever conclusion you’d like from our plant and water experiment, but we decided that this is definitely a reason not to drink tap water. You may not notice an immediate difference in your health by the water you drink, but it can make a life and death difference in the long run.