Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What type of water is everyone using for their hogs? Is anyone using Aquatize conditioner from ExoTerra?

Tap.. and no

yeah just tap. I drink it, it is good enough for my snakes

Isn't there chlorine or other chemicals in the tap water?

I used to distill it, but I don't even do that anymore. I would guess it is pretty safe.

>>Tap.. and no

Ditto.
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mk
In Hog Heaven

I'd like to share what I have learned about water and the importance of it's quality and how it relayted to basic health.
Below you can see a pic of one of my reef tanks. It is loaded with about 8k worth of some of the most amazing coral you'll ever see.The most important aspect of keeping a reef tank healthy is maintaining PERFECT water quality from salinity(specific gravity) to maintainig proper levels of nitrates, nitrites, ammonia,phosphate, alkalinity,PH etc.. etc..
In essence reef building requires you to become a sort of kitchen chemist/water quality expert.
In the past I used to think that Tap water must be safe..well it is..to a 100lb plus animal. The concentrations of chemicals from chlorine to pesticides is reportedly within "safe" limits for human and most animal consumption. But when you get down to smaller and smaller animals the effects are much more noticable and in marine ecosystems they are quite disasterous.
Even filter water has levels of pesticides ,lead, copper etc.. In fact so much so that if I were to use filtered tap water the tabnk below withing several days would become overrun with macroalgeas due to the trace levels of pesticides as well as high levels of nitrate . Most invertabrates,fish and coral housed in the type of water become ill and die, some larger invertibrates will have there calcium in there shell dissolve due to pH levels etc..As for the corals..they will literally melt if exposed to this type of water for any leangth of time.
Now with all this in mind I do not see how tap water can be generally deemed safe for small animals or even humans. I have seen what it can do to a enclosed complex ecosystem and I really hate to think what it does to our reptiles overall health. I picked up a Reverse Osmosis unit off of ebay for less that 100.00 and we use it for all our cooking drinking and of course for the reptiles. No longer do I see a white chemical ring form in waterbowls (evaporation concentrates these chemicalls even further)my animals seem healthier and as for my wife and I , we do seem to feel better.

In conclusion I'd like to say that water is the most important ingredient to life..don't take it's quality for granted!! At your local hardware stores they sell home water test kits..buy one you'll be disgusted to what your drinking..even if using a good quality filter. Mine after the filter had high levels of lead, copper , and pesticides...

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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

Great post Justin - water for thought!

I have a 125 gallon reef tank, and it receives...TAPWATER! I will post a pic if you'd like. I believe there is a difference between animals that breath water and those that drink it. What was in your tapwater that excluded it as usuable for your reef? Metals, chlorine/chloramine or just a high nitrate count?

As a side note, 8K is a lot of dollars worth of corals for any tank. Have you been to reef central? Lots of folks that can cut down on your costs through fragging and trading.

my .02

Joe

Sorry, I just re-read that and it sounded kind of harsh. All I am getting at is that not everything you mentioned is bad outside of a reef environment. The "dissolving calcium skeletons" for example. Pure freshwater has a pH of 7, a reef tank typically should be at around 8.2-8.4. If not for buffers in the salt mixes, your purified water would also dissolve the corals. As far as copper goes, it is in fact deadly to corals, and to fish in higher concentrations, but with land vertebrates the affect is not the same.

Cheers!

Joe

here we go offtopic..
Of course not all water sources are the same, if you read my post it list the chemicals I found in my water.I prefer not to drink or expose my animals to them. Most saltwater experts highly reccomend using RO water for reef tanks, in fact I would say it's the industry/hobby standard..this is why almost every saltwater store in the country sells RO water for reef tanks and discourages the use of tapwater.
I believe the latest Cornsnake book by Soderberg even mentions that tap water can have disasterous affects on baby snakes and that he even uses a filtration unit.
If you can post a pic of your 125gallon tank, I'd like to see what a tapwater maintained reef tank looks like. Most of my tank specimens are hand selected and are either rare or unique for a reason or another..saving a dime is not a priority although I have checked out that site in the past and I have had many bad experiences with people shipping corals.
Now to bring this post back on topic. Tapwater contains many chemicals, the chlorine alone will kill most freashwater and salwater fish in minutes, this leads me to wonder what is it doing inside our bodies and to our animals such as hognose snakes. Hogs don't need flouride for strong healthy teeth LOL and of course the biology of marine animals and land animals is completely different but at the cellular level most of us are still made of the same basic stuff.
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

>> Hogs don't need flouride for strong healthy teeth LOL and of course the biology of marine animals and land animals is completely different but at the cellular level most of us are still made of the same basic stuff.
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>>Justin Mitcham
>>

Why would not Hoggies, that have teeth, not benefit from strengthing of said teeth? Would not stronger teeth contribute to less mouth rot and teeth coming out due to the teeth being pulled in yanks from fearful owners? Not to mention their soft diets.

No. It's not natural for Hoggies to get flouride, but if they do I see that as good, not bad. The amount of flouride in water is not going to hurt them - it's negligble.

Tap water has to be way safer - germ, parasite, bactiria-wise - than river or lake water. That has polluntants like pesticides, fertilizer, pig/cow/etc. poo, etc., the little guys find in the wild.
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mk
In Hog Heaven

Why would not Hoggies, that have teeth, not benefit from strengthing of said teeth? Would not stronger teeth contribute to less mouth rot and teeth coming out due to the teeth being pulled in yanks from fearful owners? Not to mention their soft diets.
LOL I wasn't being serious ...but doubt they need it.

No. It's not natural for Hoggies to get flouride, but if they do I see that as good, not bad. The amount of flouride in water is not going to hurt them - it's negligble.

Tap water has to be way safer - germ, parasite, bactiria-wise - than river or lake water. That has polluntants like pesticides, fertilizer, pig/cow/etc. poo, etc., the little guys find in the wild.

"Fluoridation is the greatest case of scientific fraud of this century, if not of all time."
- Robert Carton, Ph.D. former U.S. EPA scientist

"Fluoride is an accumulative poison which accumulates in the skeletal structures, including the teeth, when the body is exposed to small daily intakes of this element. ...it is like lead accumulation in the bone until saturation occurs and then lead poisoning sets in."
- Dr. P.H. Phillips, biochemist, University of Wisconsin

"I know of absolutely no, and I mean absolutely no means of prevention that would save so many lives as simply to stop fluoridation, or don't start it where it is otherwise going to be started. There you might save 30,000 or 40,000 or 50,000 lives a year, cancer lives. That is an awful lot of lives a year."
- Dr. Dean Burk Ph.D. (34 years at the National Cancer Institute). Judicial hearing, January 14, 1982. Safe Water Foundation vs. City of Houston, District Court of Texas, Harris County, 151st Judicial District, 80-52271

The quotes above maybe a bit extreme perhaps the GOVERNMENT is right and it's absolutley safe. But why gamble.. There's great evidence and science on both sides of the argument. But to me it is always best to be cautious. I am definetly not as educated or for that matter probably not as intelligent as any one of these folks..so I'll just bypass the whole topic by only using the purest of water. The trace elements in water are definatly benefitial so there are drawbacks. Ideally the best water would be natural water from a well or stream etc.. but that is not always accessible for everyone.
Does anyone use well water or water from a natural source?
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

There is something to the water issue, but I don't think you want to filter out the Calcium or Magnesium, or possibly even the sodium depending on how is in there. These elements are more prevalent in ground water than in surface water, but densities also vary greatly by geographic location.

Magnesium is is essential for over 300 biochemical reactions in the body, helps maintain muscle and nerve function, keeps heart rhythm and maintains a healthy immune system. So water could be an important source of Magnesium.

And we all know how important calcium is.

I don't like the chlorine but if you let the a gallon of tap water sit in an open container overnight it should be plenty safe for snakes depending on how much chlorine was in the in the first place.

It's a good discussion, keep kicking it back and forth.
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Herp Conservation Unlimited
Mexicana Group Directory
Photography by Joseph E. Forks

What really surprised me wasn't the chlorine or flouride etc.. it was the pesticides, the particulate count and bacteria. the lead and copper levels in that sample of my municiple water were above safty limits. The test kit I purchased had 2 of every test for verification purposes. Both test came out pretty bad in my opinion. Enough for me to run out and refit my place with all sorts of filters etc.. test your own water..it's easy..kind of fun and cheap about 20-30.00..
it would be cool to see what others find out, In fact I'd be willing to paypal anyone 1/2 of the cost of the test kit just so I can see some other results etc.. sounds pretty fun..as long as 20 people don't take me up on the offer ..lol
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

Justin, I'll try to throw a couple of pics up here today, My tank is being overrun by coraline though, so I'm not sure how good they'll be. What size tank is yours?

I don't know how to post here, but I'll try.

this is the 125 before I combined...

This is the 65 that I combined into the 125

I will get a shot of the 125 currently today.

Joe

Stunning tank Surprised you use a Skilter but tank looks fantastic so for you it works. I have a 55 gal fowler use CPR skilter

How do we fel about useing Softend water for our drinker's

I am not a fan of "softened" water. Essentially, it removes calcium and replaces it with sodium. I'd sooner use straight tap (for hoggies or a reef!) than a salt-type water softener. I have an RO/DI unit for my aquariums, but do not use it for my snakes. I tend to think there are beneficial trace elements in water that are removed by it.