Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For heating my tank for my leo i use zoo-med's UTH. I know it heats the surface of watever it is stuck to but i was wondering on what exactly should i measure the temperature of.

Am i supposed to use a thermometer on the actual surface of the tankbottom or the air at the gecko's level?

And about water: when you provide your animals with fresh water, what do you use? I was thinking about tapwater and its chlorine levels and was wondering if botteled spring water would be best.

For measuring temps do it at the surface of the substrate. As for the water, most here prefer to use distilled I think, but I just use tap water.

Quig

what do i do if im using paper towels?

and isnt distilled a little too clean?

No. Distilled just means that they let the water sit out for a little bit, but it really isn't an effective way of removing chlorine or chloramines. If you want to get rid of them, use water dechlorinator.
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2 Taricha granulosa
1 male Terrapane carolina carolina
10 gal. tropical fish tank.

but is botteled spring water fine?

Yes.
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2 Taricha granulosa
1 male Terrapane carolina carolina
10 gal. tropical fish tank.

ok I work in the water business(during the day) and this is my opinion on what water to use, but obviously some of your opinions will differ.

Distilled water is probably the worse water to use. Reason: it is totally dead there are no nutrients whatsoever in it, and if you were to test it on a Ph scale it typically ranks at about 5 in acidity which is bad for people, animals, and plants.

You can use tap, but there is not only the problem of chlorine in the water but there are typically around 100 other chemicals added to your tap water in order to make the Ph level 7 (the lowest rating given to safe drinking water), and kill any harmful parasites that might be in your local water. This water is monitered daily and supposedly (some scientist say)the chemicals used are not harmful in the amounts used, but I disagree.

you can use a dechlorinator, but you are just adding one more chemical to the water, and it is only nuetralizing the chlorine.

out of the options presented your best choice is bottled water, but not any kind. Get the cheap kind, yes i said cheap kind, kirkland being the best, and arrowhead isnt bad. Mt. Olympus, Dasani, Aguafina, and any other name brand water are actually slightly better then distilled water. The only reason being is these waters are typically filtered to the point that there are no natural nutrients in the water, and then they add chemical based nutrients afterwards.

if you can afford it there are water filters in the market that will filter out all of the chemicals found in your water and still leave all the natural nutrients, as well as improve the Ph levels of your water.

Fyi: some signs your water might be too acidic, or your drinking way too much soda: Acid Reflux, extreme joint pains, memory loss, loss of energy.

anyways sorry for the rant I just do this for a living, and thought someone might be interested to finding out more.

I would think that distilled water should have a pH of 7 or very near 7. It should, theoretically at least, be as near to 100% pure water as is possible for humans to create, and 100% pure water's pH is exactly 7. I'm not going to claim that it's impossible that it could have a pH of 5, because theory and reality differ, but I'd like an explanation of how that occurs.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

You have an excellent question, and I will try to answer it.

Distillation is more or less done by boiling water just at its boiling point which is 212 degrees F. if it is too low or too high distillation is not accomplished.

One of the problems with current distillation is that there are chemicals, bacteria, chlorine and other VOC's that have lower boiling points. This means that they turn into steam along with water and are transferred over into the now "distilled water". Many bad things are removed though, such as the heave metals.

Some Companies put their water through filters that remove 95% to 99% of the toxins which after being distilled does make for almost 100% pure distilled water.

Water is influenced by the smallest things. Although in theory like you said "distilled" would mean that it is at PH 7 because that is the balance or the neutral point on the scale. In more recent years after the Ph system was made, we have found out that
Rainwater which is distilled through the most natural ways possible has been tested and shown to hold a natural acidity. Which leads us to believe that pure water will always have a tendency to be acidic.

With calcium, and other healthy minerals being found naturally in water, and being important for humans, animals, and plants alike; these are typically found to be on the Alkaline side of the scale, and will change the water Ph to 7-7.5 on the Ph scale.
if you have any other questions check this site out. it is not mine
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/En-Ge/Fresh-Water-Natural-Composition-of.html
or type in something like natural ph of water and there will be many sites explaining things, as I did skip over many details to try and keep this short.

Thanks for the informative reply - it makes sense, and it's nice to get to learn something I didn't know before. It sounds like really the absolute best thing would be microfiltered and then distilled water then, but that's probably prohibitively expensive for everyday/pet use, so I'll keep using what I've been using - cheap spring water from the grocery store, which just happens to coincide with your recommendation anyway.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

Let me tell you what I have done for almost 6 yrs with exactly the same animals, without negative consequences: I place my reptile heat mat at the bottom of the tank. Over it, I place a cut out piece of a Wal-Mart, store-bough welcome mat (about $3) and put the moist hide right on it. I am in Connecticut and even in the winter when the room is much cooler, my animals make if just fine with the heat provided. I do not raise my temperature over 65, and in the day I turn off the heat while I am out of the house. I have a well insulated home, so the drop in temperature is never overwhelming but the animals have warm hides in the tanks anyway.

So, go for a nice, piece of wool carpet to retain and spread the heat from the mat. Beats newspapers and sand anytime.

Wanda