No distilled water but what about softned?

I have read the thread on no distilled water for my corns, I was just curious about softned water. My two corns seem to suffer no ill affects. At this time we are using the salt tablets but the wife wants to switch to the potassium. Thanks for the help.

Softened water is pretty bad for them, especially over time. It has way too much sodium in it. Your best bet is just to get them a trusted brand of Spring Water.

carol said:

Softened water is pretty bad for them, especially over time. It has way too much sodium in it. Your best bet is just to get them a trusted brand of Spring Water.

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is it okay for them to use tap?...

stormi said:

is it okay for them to use tap?...

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I've used plain ol' tap for my corns from day one. 12 years later I still have the very first corn I got and all the others are as healthy as can be. So tap has worked great for me.

That being said, not all tap water is created equal, so I would suggest finding out what all your city puts in yours. If they load it up with all sorts of chemicals, it would be best to just use spring water. It's real cheap at wal-mart.

I am using tap water. But when we bought the house it has a water softner that softens all of the water. Softned water is made by running the water through a brine solution (useally salt) to remove the heavy metals. It makes faucets lastlonger, less soap scum on showers, use less soap. you do notice a taste difference in the water. I think that switching to the potassium tablets (does the same as the salt) would be better for all of the living creatures in the house.

I use tap water treated with Am Quel +. It takes all the chloramines, nitrates, and ammonia out of the water. A bottle costing $1.99 will treat 60 gallons of tap water. Use 10 drops(from a normal eyedropper) per gallon. Should last quite a while. The chemicals in most tap water is not good for your reptiles, amphibians, and aquatic life. Hope this helps. :cheers:

Dminor9 said:

The chemicals in most tap water is not good for your reptiles, amphibians, and aquatic life. Hope this helps. :cheers:

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Just kind of curious. I understand why the chemicals in tap water aren't healthy for amphibs and aquatics but why not for snakes? I've used tap water for all the reptiles I've owned which isn't many and I only recently got back in to herps so haven't had the time or numbers of animals to see what the effects were....but anyway, I'm getting off track. Is there any literature floating around showing how the chemicals found in tap water affect snakes? I always figured if it's good enough for me to drink it's good enough for my animals.

Anyway, any info is appreciated. I want to do what's best for my snakes.

:cheers:

From research done online, it is my understanding that chloramines cannot be eliminated through a reptiles system. Humans have the facilities to filter and get rid of these chemicals through urination. Chloramines are a combination of Chlorine and Ammonia. Since Chlorine evaporates so quickly, water treatment plants added ammonia to help keep the now Chloramines in solution. Which is why letting water stand does not eliminate Chloramines as it used to with just Chlorine. Since reptiles cannot eliminate chloramines, it slowly builds up in their system until it kills them. Of course it all depends on what is in your city's water supply and the concentration there of. I looked at water analysis for the City of Austin and the chemical levels were high enough for me to be concerned. So I play it safe and use the Am Quel+. For $1.99, it is well worth being safe. I am not sure if this explanation is 100% correct or makes sense. Anyone with a better way of explaning it, please chime in. :cheers:

It all depends on what is in your local water. In some areas tap water is just fine and in some areas tap water is not fit for humans to drink.

Thanks, Dminor9 and Carol. I'll have to look into what's in the water around here and maybe go to spring water for my snakes.

Thanks again.

:cheers:

My county uses chloramines now, but even before, I wouldn't drink the water from the tap, to say nothing of giving it to my animals. I have a triple osmosis system under my sink, and all my animals, dog's, cats, and reptiles drink it. When our water was tested by a guy that was selling those total home water systems, my osmosis system made the water almost completely pure. The unfiltered water from the tap, had more than 800 ppm of all kinds of sediments. He wasn't even certain what some of them were since his system didn't remove all of it. He said that in many places when the ppm get above 400 they tell people not to drink it.

Here in North East Florida, the tap water really sucks. I use a Britta water filter for coffee and my wife buys bottled water. I steel a bottle every week for Mr. Bill. OHHH Nooo! :twoguns:

I also have a 15 year old Blue Front Amazon parrot who has only drunk tap water and never said a bad word about it. :cheers:

Some say the chloride in tap water is bad. Others say that fluoridation is a Communist plot. :sobstory:

I'm no expert but if the water smells good, I doubt it will hurt your pets. :shrugs:

Eric

In my area, our water was contaminated with perchlorate for over a decade. The county never knew about it until they recently altered the test for perchlorate and found it. Kind of interesting they found that in our area, there is an unusually high rate of Thyroid diseases and cancers among humans and animals. Studies have also shown that perchlorate causes Thyroid diseases and cancers in lab animals. And the kicker is... my whole family always drank distilled water, except for me, I like my water cold so I always drank (in those days this was pretty fancy) from the built in chilled water server in the refridgerator door. Which is nothing more than chilled tap water. I have Thyroid disease, no one else in my family does. :shrugs: Needless to say I don't drink tap water. Then again, these days "spring water" has chances of not being so great either but at least I have better chances with it.