Water: Distilled vs purified vs everything else

I've been using tap water for over a year with no problems. I even use it to spray, but after reading about mineral deposits from tap water that gets left on the walls of the terrarium, I think I'll switch to distilled water for spraying. But tap is ok for my frogs to soak in? I live in Baltimore and our water is pretty clean here.

Now, wait... um.. where can you buy distilled water?

get some dip test strips, they like real soft alkaline water, and if it's city water u need to treat it. When I dip test my spring water against bottled spring water, my water was better. Hard water has a lot if disolved metals. Water conditioner will remove chlorine and metals. Distilled water can be found anywhere.

Originally Posted by Leefrogs

get some dip test strips, they like real soft alkaline water, and if it's city water u need to treat it. When I dip test my spring water against bottled spring water, my water was better. Hard water has a lot if disolved metals. Water conditioner will remove chlorine and metals. Distilled water can be found anywhere.

My parents have a fresh water spring underneath of a shed that has a 3 tiered water filtration system, I wonder if that would be suitable. I can always make a long drive and stock up. Dip strips are sold at pet shops? Or pool shops?

strips are at Walmart. About ten bucks, and I too have to go to parents for water. And it shows differences in water from just 100 feet away. My home water comes up full of nitate and nitrite. Thief water if purer than the fresh fallen snow. Hardness comes from metals, alkalinity comes from natural salts in water. If u do have to use water conditioner make sure it doesn't say slime coat. water filters don't remove nitrates, only reverse osmosis. And conditioner doesn't remove it ithor. So that's most important.

Is conditioned tap water the best to use? I put distilled in my vivarium, but the frogs aren't in it yet and I can easily siphon it out. Would it regrade the frog's health or be hazardous to them if I used distilled?

Yep, tap with a conditioner. Distilled is used for misting and for medical treatment for toxed out frogs.

Originally Posted by Leefrogs

Yep, tap with a conditioner. Distilled is used for misting and for medical treatment for toxed out frogs.

I'm not sure if my tap has ammonia or fluoride added. Would it be okay to use conditioner that takes out chlorines and metals on arrowhead spring water?

I would buy the dip test from Walmart. I've tested spring water that's bottles 60 miles south of me that came up with nitrate. There's really no standard for so called spring water. And no conditioner will remove nitrates/ nitrites.

trial and error - I've found the best thing for tadpoles is brita water with amquil mixed in (10 drops per gallon of water) and mix it good and let it sit for a day or at least over night before using it. everytime I did that method I had no problems. everytime I tried something different I would loose some tadpoles.
got 5 toadlets now and they all prefer Brita water

I just noticed someone mentioned leaving tap water out to stand or age for a few days. Does that work? I mean does it reduce the chemicals in the water?i live in belfast and our tap water is not soo good, even if we drink it we can taste a lot of chlorine kind of taste in it! At the minute im using bottled water, but because i have tetras and guppies and bettas i have tetra aquasafe hanging around so maybe the best thing is to treat frogs like fish when it comes to water! Also what does boiling the water actually do to it in terms of chemicals, if anything at all??

Joy

That only works if your water is only treated with chlorine. If it's treated with ammonia too then leaving it out to stand won't be as effective.

Thanks john, would it matter if it was aquasafe for goldfish or aquasafe for tropical fish?

so John, are you saying that if you use R/O water for say the water bowl in a Red-Eyed Leaf Frog tank that you need to add stuff to the water? I'm thinking about getting a 4 stage R/O water system because I like to drink alot of water personally and would be cheaper in the long run and better than my little old brita plus R/O water at home would save me from having to buy distilled at the grocrery for my mistking system, but if i use that R/O water in the water dish for the Red-Eyed Leaf Frog i need to add something to it like R/o-rite?

I was just looking at Gerber pure Baby water it says it purified water with some added mineral for tast its from protected well in Stanwood Michigan purified through reverse osmosis and distilation no added fluoride ingredents are purified water, magnesium sulfate , potassium bicarbonate , and calcium chloride does this sound like a good source of water and would any of those ingrediants harm any of the frog spieces if used it only $1 a gallon

you should be able to buy distilled water straight up at the grocery store for $1, least you can at my grocery stores

I would use Spring Water because, for some reason I had my old Whites Tree Frog's ( Mr.Sticky) on distilled water and he started acting lethargic. I quickly switched to spring water and he acted just fine. You may be using distilled but if it were me I would use spring.

I used to be in the camp who insisted that my tree frogs were fine with RO water in their water dishes but after losing a few for what I thought was no apparent reason I decided to look into it. The frogs would do fine for months and months and then they would simply start losing weight even though they were eating and looking and acting all lethargic and such. It was almost like they were being mummified even thought I misted the cage and saw them soaking. Since I have switched to my well water for soaking (still use RO for misting) I've had no problems. I was using the RO because we have very hard water and when it evaporates in a bowl you can see the calcium left behind. I figured if it was doing this to a water dish then what is it doing to my animal's skin. I've switched to well water for all my herps bowls and have noticed no problems.

I've learned my lesson I'm just sorry the poor frogs had to suffer for it.

Distilled water and R/O water lack the minerals and salts that your frogs need to hydrate themselves. It is only safe for misting. If you use in your frogs water bowls. It will actually steal minerals/vitamins/and salts from your frogs and will cause severe health issues. If you intend on using R/O water for your frogs main water source it must have minerals and salts added to it. You can buy these additives like you can the conditionersat some pet stores.

I have well water and live in the country in PA. Can I use this kind of water for my Red eyed tree frogs? I am a new frog owner and am ignorant in whats best for my frogs. I have been using this for my frogs for about 4 days now and it is purified before entering my viv.