Reptile & Amphibian Forums

after doing a websearch I found plenty of anti-RO and anti-distilled water info both concerning its use with amphibians and humans, all hypothetical, none with any controlled studies...and then it occurred to me that ETBs drink RAINWATER which is DEVOID of minerals.....and more than likely the water is consumed from their coils or off leaves.....collecting rainwater in Urban or Industrialized areas may not be wise because of the pollutants accumulated on the way down, BUT, the fact remains that the rainwater in the Amazon is essentially devoid of minerals.

Let me play devils advocate for a minute here, and say that most of what is written here or anywhere is all theory.
The reasoning that people use to make RO water out to be the devil is that it lacks appropriate levels of natural electrolytes due to the amazingly thourgh filtering process, not the lack or minerals.
Of course no studies have been done to the best of my knowledge on the effects of electrolytes or lack there of in arboreal boids.
It is very very hard to “filter” out all minerals from H20 espically with a home use RO unit, which takes out everything over appx. 5 microns and most minerals are not larger than appx. 2 microns.
So to make a long story short, if you pour a little bit of powerade into the RO water you should be just fine : )

Joe
www.emeraldboas.com

>>It is very very hard to “filter” out all minerals from H20 espically with a home use RO unit, which takes out everything over appx. 5 microns and most minerals are not larger than appx. 2 microns.
________________________

The cheapest of RO units will usually have a 1 micron filter attached...and almost any decent 3 stage RO system usually uses an additional deionization filter which is essentially a canister filled with cation and anion resins, a strong cation resin will remove calcium, sodium, manganese, iron, lead, mercury and arsenic. An anion resin removes carbonates, bicarbs, chlorides, phosphates, silicates, and nitrates

How many of the above NECESSARY minerals can a reptile (or *gasp* an amphibian)stand to lose? Of course there's alot of bad stuff removed with an RO unit but there are also too many "good" things being taken out.

>>So to make a long story short, if you pour a little bit of powerade into the RO water you should be just fine : )
>>
>>Joe
>>www.emeraldboas.com

Now seriously, have you looked at the ingredients in Powerade?
If not let me help...

Ingredients: water, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin (glucose polymers), citric acid, salt, natural flavors, potassium citrate, potassium phosphate, niacinamide, yellow 5, pyridoxine hydrochloride, blue 1, cyanocobalamin

Nutrition Facts: serving size 8 fl oz; servings per container 4; calories 70; fat 0g; sodium 55mg; potassium 30mg; total carbs 19g; sugars 15g; protein 0g; vitamin b6 10%; vitamin b12 10%; niacin 10%

I'm sure adding this to your snake's drink will work wonders.
Good luck, Joe.
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Urban Jungles.com

BUT, the fact remains that the rainwater in the Amazon is essentially devoid of minerals.

This is not true...
As rainwater falls through the atmosphere it collects ions ... the rest can be looked up in your chemistry books, but I assure you that rainwater in the Amazon is not devoid of minerals.

RO water is not a good SOLE source if water, it's fine to spray with RO but you should have a large container of tap for drinking readily available should the snake choose to. If you get to the point where you have to add anything to the water as suggested in one of the previous posts on this topic then there's definitely a need for a husbandry evaluation.

I know of quite a few keepers that use RO with no apparent ill effects, and I've head of some electrolyte imblance problems becuase of RO use as well...

I personally would only use tap or filtered but not RO or Distilled for drinking water. Remember that treeboas lose water just during the process of breathing...it's definitely a balance you don't want to mess with.

Just keep it simple.
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Urban Jungles.com