Water: Distilled vs purified vs everything else

[Paul Rust]

Arguing with the chemist who works with water, huh Paul.

LOL, not arguing John, I'm not crazy.
Just helping to shed some light. I do maintain and monitor 3 large RO/DI systems.

[Leefrogs]

I use my parents well water, 8 ft into water table, and naturally filtered by sand, but close to a two fork river. Much better than mine at 35 feet and full of nitrates. But after reading this I worry about my parents old plumbing. Should I just go buy water conditioner at store or go up the mountain to a natural flowing spring that emerges at 1,000 ft elevation. (pretty high for wisconsin) Locals have used this water forever. Both the spring and my parents water I've tested for nitates in the past both are nitrate free. Are old pipes as dangerous as bad water?

[tadpole]

old copper pipes should be ok, as any lead solder will have formed a layer of oxidation over it, preventing it from dissolving in the water. galvanized pipes eventually clog with mineral deposits, but are otherwise ok.

the main thing is to know your local water's parameters. call your utility company to see what they treat with, and what the ph is. i have been adding rainwater ph 6 to my filtered tap water ph 7.2 50/50 to get the ph under 7, for small quantities, which i use for budgett frogs and snapping turtles. i do daily complete changes on them.

i still filter my tap water with a brita, but for large quantities, as when i change 20 gals, i have been using tetra's aquasafe. just dump in the correct measured amount, and fill the tank back up with fresh tap water. then you may have to adjust the ph depending on what you are keeping. my acf's seem fine at a ph 7.2, which is how it comes out of the tap, and i do complete water changes once a week on them.

[ezwider]

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?

[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.

[ezwider]

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?

[Leefrogs]

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.

[Toitle]

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?

[Leefrogs]

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.

[Curb71]

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

[JoyAlbertMancini]

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

[John]

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.