{"id":22,"date":"2026-07-05T11:09:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T09:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/tds-agua-que-es\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T11:11:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T09:11:51","slug":"tds-agua-que-es","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/tds-agua-que-es\/","title":{"rendered":"TDS: what it is and what your tap water should read"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When we come to run a <a href=\"\/en\/contacto\/\">water test<\/a> at your home, we always pull out a little gadget: a <strong>TDS meter<\/strong>. It's the best quick snapshot of your water. In this article we explain what it measures, what readings are normal and what they actually tell you.<\/p>\n<h2>What TDS is<\/h2>\n<p>TDS stands for <em>Total Dissolved Solids<\/em>: total dissolved solids. It's everything your water carries dissolved that you can't see: mineral salts (calcium, magnesium, sodium), bicarbonates, chlorides, sulfates, some metals. It's measured in <strong>ppm<\/strong> (parts per million) or in <strong>mg\/L<\/strong>: they're equivalent.<\/p>\n<p>The meter doesn't distinguish harmless salts from contaminants, but it gives a <strong>general picture<\/strong>: cuanta m\u00e1s carga mineral, m\u00e1s sabor \u00abduro\u00bb y m\u00e1s cal.<\/p>\n<h2>What Malaga and Marbella's water reads<\/h2>\n<p>It depends on the neighborhood and season, but as a guide:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Low-mineralization bottled mineral water<\/strong>: 20-100 ppm.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tap water in Malaga and Marbella<\/strong>: between <strong>300 and 700 ppm<\/strong> is typical. In areas with more limescale it can reach 800.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Reverse osmosis water<\/strong>: between <strong>15 and 50 ppm<\/strong> after the membrane.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Water between 300 and 700 ppm is <strong>drinkable and safe<\/strong> by law, but it's <strong>hard<\/strong>water: you notice it when drinking, in the <a href=\"\/en\/agua-cal-cloro-malaga-marbella\/\">limescale on coffee machines and kettles<\/a> and in the white marks in the bathroom.<\/p>\n<h2>How to read the number<\/h2>\n<p>These are the ranges we usually work with in practice:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>0-50 ppm<\/strong>: very pure water (typical of a recent osmosis system).<\/li>\n<li><strong>50-150 ppm<\/strong>: very low mineralization.<\/li>\n<li><strong>150-300 ppm<\/strong>: mineralizaci\u00f3n media, agua \u00abligera\u00bb al gusto.<\/li>\n<li><strong>300-500 ppm<\/strong>: noticeable mineralization, some hardness starts to show.<\/li>\n<li><strong>500-800 ppm<\/strong>: hard water (our coast usually sits here).<\/li>\n<li><strong>+800 ppm<\/strong>: very hard water, with a clear impact on plumbing and taste.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>TDS isn't everything<\/h2>\n<p>A TDS of 400 can be excellent water (lots of good calcium and magnesium) or mediocre (unwanted salts). The meter can't tell. That's why, in the <a href=\"\/en\/contacto\/\">water test<\/a> we combine TDS with <strong>real hardness<\/strong> (French degrees) and with smell and taste: that's how we know what suits you.<\/p>\n<h2>And once you have your osmosis system<\/h2>\n<p>With a <a href=\"\/en\/osmosis-inversa-domestica\/\">osmosis system<\/a> up and running, TDS should drop from 300-700 to under 50. If you see it rise, the <strong>membrane<\/strong> est\u00e1 pidiendo cambio: ese es el \u00abchivato\u00bb del <a href=\"\/en\/mantenimiento-filtros-osmosis\/\">maintenance<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TDS measures everything dissolved in your water that you can't see. We explain what the numbers mean, what Malaga and Marbella's water reads, and what it says about your water's real quality.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osmosiscostadelsol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}