Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First off, I've always used distiled water for all my herps. Now, I've heard recently that its ok to use tap water for snakes and lizards. Is this true? And if so, can I switch directly from dis. water to tap water? Thanks.
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Some people don't use tap because of the quality of their tap water. Some say if it's fit for you to drink then it should be okay for them. Really depends on the water. My tap water is a bit hard, but it's not bad. But we don't even drink it so we don't give it to any of our animals. But that's just our choice.
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when i got my first snake i added that water purifier stuff to tap water. but i don't any more. i just give them tap water. ours is pretty good. personally my sis and i drink bottled water but i'm not about to buy a bunch of water for snakes. they have been fine with tap water for over a year now.

>>First off, I've always used distiled water for all my herps. Now, I've heard recently that its ok to use tap water for snakes and lizards. Is this true? And if so, can I switch directly from dis. water to tap water? Thanks.

I've been using tap water for 35 years. I've never had a problem from it. They sure don't get distilled water in the wild...they drink from mud puddles, drainage ditches, ponds, streams, lakes, whatever...I'm sure that they pick up parasites from the water they drink in the wild, but tap water should be relatively parasite-free. If it doesn't harm us, I don't think it will harm our snakes. Plus it doesn't really make sense to me that some folks give their snakes purified water in a bowl in their cage, (where it's going to start culturing it's own bacteria within a couple of hours anyway), then feed them a live rat? That rat has probably 5000 times as much bacteria on it as even bad tap water could ever have. It seems like if they were going to worry about something, the food animals would be the focus of the worry. You'd be better off spending the money on frozen rodents as opposed to purified or distilled water.
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>>People Who Say Money Can't Buy You Happiness Obviously Didn't Know Where To Buy A Herp
>>
>>2.0 Cornsnakes
>>1.0 Ball Python
>>0.1 Cal Kingsnake
>>0.1 Taiwan Beauty Snake
>>0.0.1 Leo Gecko
>>1.0 Bearded Dragon
>>0.0.1 Marbled Gecko
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I use "stale" water. I have two 5 gallon buckets in my herp room with airstone bubblers in them. I let them sit for a day or two before using the water. This allows the chlorine to evaporate out of the water. I do this mainly for my turtle, and frog aquariums but since it's close at hand, that's what my other herps get for drinking water also. I don't know if it makes much of a difference but it can't hurt.
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