Reptile & Amphibian Forums

im curious how many people mist and water their chondros with tap water,or if they use another source or maybe de-chlorinate their tap water?i keep one of my chondros in a planted vivarium that requires special water with the chlorine and other contaminents removed.chlorine must be removed to keep the moss alive,and hard water will cause buildup on my fogger,so that cant be used as well.it was never really a consideration with my chondros but ever since i began using it with my one snake that resides in the vivarium,i have noticed some improvements in his skin,sheds and overall look.it may be that the humidity is a lot higher than before(through the wet soil,plants and fogger) or it may be the better quality water.chlorine is known for drying out and being generally bad for the skin and i also have heard that a lot of water has floride added that is bad for all sorts of reasons.anyway,dont know why but ever since i switched to spring water,i have a much better looking chondro.

>>im curious how many people mist and water their chondros with tap water,or if they use another source or maybe de-chlorinate their tap water?i keep one of my chondros in a planted vivarium that requires special water with the chlorine and other contaminents removed.chlorine must be removed to keep the moss alive,and hard water will cause buildup on my fogger,so that cant be used as well.it was never really a consideration with my chondros but ever since i began using it with my one snake that resides in the vivarium,i have noticed some improvements in his skin,sheds and overall look.it may be that the humidity is a lot higher than before(through the wet soil,plants and fogger) or it may be the better quality water.chlorine is known for drying out and being generally bad for the skin and i also have heard that a lot of water has floride added that is bad for all sorts of reasons.anyway,dont know why but ever since i switched to spring water,i have a much better looking chondro.

I use tap water for spraying and spring water for all water dishes. Clint
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0.1 Colombian Boa-(Boa Constrictor Imperator) "Honey"
1.0 Hogg Isle Boa-(Boa Constrictor Imperator) "Peeker"
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa-(Epicrates Cenchria) "Houdini"
1.1 Argentine Boa-(Boa Constrictor Occidentalis) "Lacie" & "Oreo"
0.0.2 Green Tree Python-(Morelia Viridis)Biak type-"Smog" & Sorong type- "un-named"
2.0 Canines Husky-Cody & Husky/Shepard-Trail
0.1 Wife-Michele
2.0 Kids-Chris & Bodhi(New born 9/14/05)

I use Poland Springs water for all of my animals including my cats (LOL). My tap water stains glass and leaves residue in my shower and that can't be good. Been using bottled water for years.

My tap water contains chloramines which are fatal to reptiles, and it always had lots of unknown junk in it before that. It's all well water. I've always used r/0 from my under the sink unit for the snakes, dogs, cats and people.
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1.0~amel corn~C.S.
1.3~Aztec Okeetee corns~Coatl,Maya,Acatl,Tepin
0.1.1~Green tree python~Tempest, Whisper
0.2~Rhodesian Ridgebacks~Akilah, Ona
1.0~Black fat cat~Topper
3.0~Horses~Zaarah,Galliano,Achilles.....

does anyone use that Reptisafe solution they sell? supposed to remove chlorine and other chemicals in tap water. I was thinking about giving it a try but if someone else has tried it I would like to hear your opinions.

Chloramine is utilized by many municipal water companies as a suspension agent for chlorine, meaning it prevents the chlorine from dissipitating from the water too quickly.
There is a bit of literature from Europe, regarding the possibility of problems associated with the use of chlorinated water and water containing chloramines to mist and water reptiles, but such is lacking here in the U.S.
Many zoological and academic entities within large cities use municipal water, with no special additives or filtering, and I have yet to hear of any massive die offs within such collections associated to chloramines or chlorine.
Being an avid aquarist, I can attest to the negative effects such tap water additives have upon fish, so I started using a product known as AMQUEL to remove the additives from my tap water, prior to misting and filling the water bowls of my reptile collection. Though I used nothing but water straight from the tap for 20 years prior and never lost a specimen to such.
This seems to be a topic which rears its ugly head on virtually every forum at one time or another. If it's not chloramines scaring everyone, it's cryptosporidiosis in the tap.
I would be curious to know how many folks out there have lost animals as a direct result chloramines or cryptosporidiosis from the tap, not; I think / guess I lost, or, a friend of mine once told me of a time-, but rather a “confirmed” loss from such.

Best regards,

Jeff
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Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

thanks jeff,yea for all that dont know,chloramines are basically a combination of chlorine and amonia that help with the breakdown and quick evaporation of chlorine.many people seem to think that keeping bowls of tapwater out overnight causes all of the chlorine to dissapate.while this would be true with pure chlorine,if chloramines are used instead,it does not work.its said that tap water would have to be left out over a week for it to evaporate.many towns around the united states have begun the switch from chlorine to chloramines and most dont even know it.i think as of now,the majority have already made the switch.i didnt know it untill this week when i checked with my town and found out that the switch was made last year.chloramines as far as being far harder to remove,are also far more deadly for fish and its safe to assume reptiles as well.yea jeff,i really dont know of anyone having lost reptiles to chloramines but how would we really know?how common is it to hear on these forums ,my snake is dead, what happened?"if these are causing any problems,even slight,it would be a contributing factor to all sorts of acclimation problems.it may also be that certain species are more succeptable than others.i know with certain chemicals,like anti-mite drugs,certain snakes do great with than and use the same amount of drug with another species and they drool,paralize,death ect.i know that no pest strips work well for many snakes but use them with whitlipped pythons and youll be lucky if the snake survives.anyway,what im saying is that there are too many unknowns and considering how common"unknown deaths"are,i feel better eliminating anything that logically should or could cause a problem.anyway,thanks jeff.your post was very informative.

I use filtered tap water for both misting and water dishes and haven't had any problems related to water so far. I find that by topping off the water dishes with fresh water every day helps keep my snakes to be good drinkers.

yea if it was only the chlorine that was the problem,i dont think it would matter much because my snakes never drink as soon as i change the water bowl.after sitting out a few hours the chlorine is supposed to dissapate.its some of the other things that you can worry about.some put amonia in and i think all have some level of floride.if you look it up you will see there are all sorts of movements to stop the putting of floride in our water.its supposed to strenghthen teeth but has been proven to do nothing except cause bladder cancer and other bad things.its called the biggest sham of our century.anyway,if such small amounts have proven to be bad for a creature that weighs between a hundred and 2 hundred lbs,i couldnt imagine how it could effect something only one percent of that.

http://www.aquasana.com/

These are great water filters, better than most bottled water. It's a good compromise for me to because I haul a lot of water around here for the snakes, mice, dogs, bird and us.

yea if it was only the chlorine that was the problem,i dont think it would matter much because my snakes never drink as soon as i change the water bowl.after sitting out a few hours the chlorine is supposed to dissapate.its some of the other things that you can worry about.some put amonia in and i think all have some level of floride.if you look it up you will see there are all sorts of movements to stop the putting of floride in our water.its supposed to strenghthen teeth but has been proven to do nothing except cause bladder cancer and other bad things.its called the biggest sham of our century.anyway,if such small amounts have proven to be bad for a creature that weighs between a hundred and 2 hundred lbs,i couldnt imagine how it could effect something only one percent of that.