Rainwater good for what?

[kueluck]

Rain water is all I've used for almost 2 years on my amphibians. I only use distilled to mist and clean the glass.

[deeishealthy]

Distilled is what I'm looking to replace. I'm going through a lot of it with the misting machine. It's worth it, because it's regulating the humidity unlike I've been able to, but holy man. I'm a bit of a tree hugger so paying for bottled water is not cool in my world.

[kueluck]

Other waters will plug up your misting machine because of minerals and deposits. But then you can alway just use a hand mister, rain water would work for this.

[deeishealthy]

Google tells me that the ph of the rainfall in the Lower Mainland is 4. No idea what that means.

[fish4all]

That means it is acidic, much more than the normal rainfall reading of 5.6 which is still acidic. The scale is 0-14. 0 being strongest Acid, 14 being strongest base and 7 being neutral.

I would test my your rain water to see what it reads direct collected. Get a reading and then aerate it for 24 hours and check it again. Lawn and garden, pet stores and pool stores should have fairly cheap and easy to use pH test kits. One recommendation, get a liquid test kit and not strips. My work with aquarium fish has taught me a hard lesson on the accuracy of strips compared to liquid testing.

What a pH of 4 means to you being able to use it for your animals, I wish I could help there but I do not know.

I have used rain water for 9 years for aquariums, frogs, insects and rodents and I have never seen a negative effect from it.

[deranged chipmunk]

I only know of a few fish that are happy in water or pH of 4 and they are some wild discus. A friend of mine breeds them profesionally, and he said it's a nightmare to keep it at 4.0. Maybe i should tell him to move to canada and collect rainwater....lol

I agree with Brian, i never ran distilled water in my misters. They all got tank water from my 75. I kept a second set of nozzles that got swapped each month, then soaked in vinegar.

[HerpDerp]

So I might be going out on a limb here, but why not just get a dehumidifier for your house? You should put it in a separate room for your frogs so it doesn't suck humidity from your frog's tank. But the water left in it is distilled. If you have a basement or something that would work fantastically. You wouldn't need to worry about buying distilled water anymore (or as often anyways).

Another option is to get a reverse osmosis system (not cheap though). I'm not sure if it's actually distilled but I'm assuming it would remove enough mineral to be used in your mister.

[deranged chipmunk]

You can get ro units relatively inexpensively now. About $100 on ebay. But unless you get an ro/di unit, it won't remove minerals.

[deeishealthy]

You can get ro units relatively inexpensively now. About $100 on ebay. But unless you get an ro/di unit, it won't remove minerals.

Was that English?

[deranged chipmunk]

You can get ro units relatively inexpensively now. About $100 on ebay. But unless you get an ro/di unit, it won't remove minerals.

sorry, i need to correct myself, won't remove all the minerals.

[deeishealthy]

So I might be going out on a limb here, but why not just get a dehumidifier for your house? You should put it in a separate room for your frogs so it doesn't suck humidity from your frog's tank. But the water left in it is distilled. If you have a basement or something that would work fantastically. You wouldn't need to worry about buying distilled water anymore (or as often anyways).

Another option is to get a reverse osmosis system (not cheap though). I'm not sure if it's actually distilled but I'm assuming it would remove enough mineral to be used in your mister.

Great advice and I thank you for it. However a dehumidifier just might leave me as human jerky. I'm already struggling with the dryness in my house. I suffer from eczema and it's so dry and cold right now that I'm having an outbreak, which is unusual as I've had it under control for years.

[deranged chipmunk]

Dee, i think you are starting to over think this. just use declorinated tap water in your mister. clean it out thoroughly once a month with a mild vinegar/water solution (including mist nozzles) and you should have no problems whatsoever. worst case scenario? your nozzles may clog and you'll have to spend about $10 or so for new ones.