Rainwater good for what?

[deeishealthy]

I live in the Lower Mainland, BC. We get a LOT of rain. But if I were to collect it, how do I classify it? Is it equivelent to spring water? Distilled water? Can I use it in my mister?

Another water question: I'm going through a lot of distilled water with my mister (totally worth it to have a balanced vivarium). Can I filter the water from the bottom of the terrarium and reuse it? Or use rainwater? (Can you tell that I'm so hoping rainwater equals distilled? LOL)

[deranged chipmunk]

Rainwater is, in some people's opinion, the only thing to use in a viv. I tend to agree. Unless, of course, you have industry in the city, in which case i would avoid it. But, if you can collect it cleanly and you have no excessive pollution, then it is certainly ok to use in your mister. I would test the pH at the very minimum before using it though. It will tell you if it is excessively acidic (acid rain). No, it won't melt your frog's face off......lol

If you are not running any filtration in your system, then recirculating your water supply is a less than stellar idea. I recycle in my mantella tank, but i also have so much bio material in there that i could toss in a dead moose and not pollute the water.....lol this has been a source of. debatenon other noards for a while

[deeishealthy]

So far the water is clean in that I spot clean the frog poop if I can see it, but they usually go in their pool, which is emptied daily. It's cocofibre that tints it. I pondered running it through coffee filters.

I will look into how to test for acidity in my rainwater and what I need. That's new to me. To Google!

[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.

[UncleChester]

So far the water is clean in that I spot clean the frog poop if I can see it, but they usually go in their pool, which is emptied daily. It's cocofibre that tints it. I pondered running it through coffee filters.

I will look into how to test for acidity in my rainwater and what I need. That's new to me. To Google!

There are pH testing kits availabe anywhere that sells pet fish.

This may be a stupid question from someone who doesn't own an automated misting machine, but can they not be taken apart and cleaned? Or run vinegar through them periodically to remove mineral deposits? Not while connected to the tank of course. Vinegar works great on the coffee maker. Mineral deposits on the glass are easy enough to clean up if cost is a concern. Rain water isn't generally high on the mineral content as far as I know, but this may be dependent on where you live, like next to a big salty ocean?

[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?

[deeishealthy]

And HOLY BANANA FEATHER, Batman. Acid rain exists! I'm not taking Google's word for it, though. I'll get a liquid kit. Thanks for the info, I really didn't find much information online.

[deranged chipmunk]

sorry Dee. ro=reverse osmosis. and ro/di is reverse osmosis/deionization. water purification at it's finest it basically, for lack of a better word, sterilizes the water. you can actually buy ro water at most well stocked reef shops.

[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]

Wow, my head is spinning but I think I gotcha. A reverse osmosis machine is expensive ans would only remove some of the minerals... so distilled is still better unless I can raise the ph in the rainwater? Can I do that? I've never had a fish tank so please excuse my ignorance. I've Googled this question as well and cannot get an answer. And I'm the Google Master!

[fish4all]

There are a few ways I know of to raise the pH. The first is to aerate it. Part of the acidic nature of rainwater is CO2 concentration. Collect your rain water, place it in a bucket overnight with an aquarium aerator running and test it again in the morning.
Another way is adding baking soda, might not be the best way because it will likely cause white water spots on the glass fairly quickly.
Anything else takes a long time that I have used for aquariums and would add minerals anyway.

You could always distill your own water. I have a cousin that does it for making beer. I don't know how much the initial investment would be. I would have to research it myself.

[deeishealthy]

I threw up a request on freecycle for a water distiller. Cross your fingers!

[deeishealthy]

From what I can see a countertop distiller is a $200ish investment. Considering I'm spending $20 a month on bottled distilled water, I'm seeing this as cheap as all get out!! If I cannot find one for stupid cheap on CraigsList or FreeCycle I will definitely invest.