What water quality tests and parameters do you go by?

[privet01]

Since there have been a few posts concerning water, I've been wondering more about it. So far I have not found any specific information for FBT's or toads/frogs with a few quick google searches.

I'm talking about water chemistry.... things like ph, ammonia levels, alkalinity, etc.

Currently I'm assuming the aquarium water test kits give usable information for FBT's too. But still, I have not seen any published ranges for the various things we can test for.

My 10 gallon enclosure I use for my viv has a gallon of water (I use distilled) in it that is a week old and I typically siphon it out and do a full change every week. I tested it today and it shows pretty much in the ideal range. Even for ammonia, which I worry about the most.

I'm not really concerned about the "don't ever use chlorinated water" comments as the oldest FBT I have spent his first five months with me in chlorinated water. Though I agree it's not desirable, I think that those five months with no ill affects demonstrates that chlorine is not a death sentence in the short term of things. I've had him for five years now and he is still the strongest and most active of the two.

I've also never used any water treatment of any kind other than what the rock and plants in my viv do for it.

[deranged chipmunk]

i think this is an excellent topic. most people never concern themselves with their water chemistry. they just pour water in with some dechlorinator and hope for the best. since many people mist with distilled, water chemistry isn't really a concern, since it's essentially neutral and devoid of any trace minerals. but people who keep semi-aquatics or any frog with a water feature should be, especially if you use well water as a lot of people do. quite often, well water has run through a limestone aquifer, making it very alkaline and hard, or as we call it in the planted aquarium world, liquid rock. for an animal that lives it's life in a soft, acidic water environment, like a B. Orientalis, or a south american tree/dart frog, being exposed to hard water could be very detrimental over the long run. of course, any water that filters through an abg substrate will be softened due to the ingredients that would buffer it (peat moss, tree fern fiber, to name a few), so distilled may drop from 7.0 pH to about 6.6 pH simply by passing through it. so that helps.

ammonia and nitrites should be the ones that we should be worried about for any frog that spends time in the water. those can be very deadly. but with regular water changes, and/or good filtration and a properly cycled tank, those should not be an issue on a regular basis.

as far as the "don't ever use dechlorinated water" thing, chlorine will off gas in about 24 hours if the water is in an open top container. however, chloramines will not. they must be chemically removed, as well as flouride. you need to check with your water supplier to find out if they use either in your water. everyone in the U.S. should be able to view what your local water quality is. you just need to look it up. not everyplace in the country uses chlorine and chloramines. my city uses chlorine only, so i could allow my water to off gas for 24 hours before use if i so choose to. in your case, if your area does not use chloramines, then the frogs would have only been in trace amounts of chlorine for less than 24 hours at a time. they didn't spend 5 months in it but, i will say this. i was bleaching a tank (frogs were removed, or so i thought) and i somehow missed a frog that got a full onslaught from my 3:1 water/bleach mix. it took me a while to finally catch him and get him into a dechlor bath, but he was never the worse for wear. i'm not saying that means that chlorine isn't deadly, please don't mistake that, but i am saying that if you were to forget dechlorinator once or twice, you frog will not meet an instant demise.

i agree on the treatments 100%. those slime coat additives are garbage. pH buffers, well, you can buffer pH naturally without adding chemical just as easy. and i am a firm believer that if you get algae, algae fix or something like that, is a bandaid. if you fix the tank and get it balanced, the algae will stay away.

[jarteta97]

That was some really good info Bill. I'll be sure to use it in the future. You'll see later tonight why I won't need it with my current tank

[monster]

Hello, so I just read what you posted Bill and now I have question. So when you say that firebelly toads come from more soft waters does that mean it would be better for me to use my soft water from the water softener or is it still better to bypass it and use the hard water with some reptisafe? I know the water softener doesn't totally clean your water so I would still add the reptisafe? At the moment I bypass the softener and run the tap for about 10 minutes to clean out the pipe of any softwater and then do what I have to do. I have always wondered if softwater was ok to use actually. And i know the kind of soft water your talking about isn't the same as from a water softener but would it kind of be the samething. I have never owned anything that really required water before last September when i purchased my 4 fire bellies and a betta for my kids so im really green on this topic, so if this question sounds ridiculous im sorry. L.O.L

[deranged chipmunk]

believe it or not, that is a really great question, but one i unfortunately do not have answer to right now. but i am going to ask a few people who would. as i understand it, water softeners remove the alkalids from the water, thereby softening it. i guess the main consideration is what is used to soften the water. what chemicals are used in the process and whether or not chemical dechlorinators remove them. one could easily assume that if it is safe for human consumption, then it should be safe, but, just because we can consume it, doesn't mean it is healthy for a frog to absorb directly into their body. we at least have digestive fluids, kick butt antibodies and have built immunities to such things, frogs don't have those luxuries.

if you are doing small water changes, of say a couple gallons, there are some nice natural ways to soften your water. peat, is an excellent natural buffer. it's great for lowering pH and reducing alkalinity. there are peat filter packs you can purchase for aquarium filters for just this very purpose. if you were to soak on in a shallow pan of water (i'll explain why shallow in a sec), for a week or so, you should see a decent change. Carbon dioxide (co2) also lowers pH. since introducing co2 into water just for water changes really isn't economical, the more surface area, the more co2 you can add to the water. stirring it occasionally would help, but you're not really going to add much. this would be a negligible difference, if any at all. but hey, every little bit helps sometimes.. lol

i will definitely ask a few of my planted aquarium friends who are like the Rainmen of water chemisry and get an answer to your question though.

[Crispy42]

I would be pretty hesitant to use a water softener with the water for your frogs. Some of those softener pellets have added chemicals that aren't safe for aquarium use, so they probably wouldn't be healthy for frogs either. My parents have a water softener system in their house and when I visit my skin breaks out in a terrible rash if I shower or wash my hands in their water! Something in the softener pellets just aggravates my eczema, so I can't imagine what it would do to a frog's sensitive skin.
I agree with Bill that a natural method would be better if you do want to soften your water.

[deranged chipmunk]

I had a feeling there were probably some pretty nasty chemicals in those pellets. Probably the best bet, if you have really hard water, is to just use distilled water.


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

[monster]

Thanks for the replies guys, and the chemicals in the salt that are used is why I never used it. Didn't think it would be all that good for them, but never hurts to ask. And now that you mention that about the eczema it makes me wonder, both my kids have sensitive skin and until about the three years ago when we moved into this house we always used hard water. This place came with the softener installed already and now my kids get eczema a lot more then before. Hmmm.... Makes me wonder. And would distilled water be ok to use with firebellies in there main water source. I have my29 gallon l tank split in 2 with plexi glass divider and I use the tetra fauna filter for terrariums that's rated for 20 gallons I believe, its a little green canister.

[privet01]

I'll certainly defer to deranged chipmunk's answer on distilled water, but I've been using it in a ten gallon viv for over four years now. The only rational comments on the negative aspect of distilled water I've seen is that as it's pure and not buffered with minerals the pH can swing quicker, possibly to a value that is not desirable. While that may be true, I believe that a lot depends on the makeup of your viv. My viv uses washed gravel to define my wet and dry areas. So I assume the minerals in the gravel leach into the water and give it a certain amount of ph buffering. In a viv that doesn't use any natural materials, I would be a little more concerned with the use of distilled water. However as I like to experiment, if I ever desired to build a viv using foam and acrylic to define the parts that the water contacted, then I'd try distilled water and see. If testing with those inexpensive aquarium test kits showed things going awry, I'd just switch it to spring water, which is not that much more expense at the big name discount store from Arkansas.

I'm interested in the comment on fluoridated water. I think ours is, so what observation about my fbt should I have noted during the time it was in such water? The only report I found with a quick search was about fish in ponds built for water features down in Australia. But it only seemed to indicate that the fish became aggressive and despite being well fed, they the fish, not the fluoride, killed off the tadpoles.

[monster]

I always thought and heard also that the distilled is not the greatest for them that's why I asked again when it was mentioned to use it. What would happen if you mixed distilled and hard water together? Again I have never done this but always wondered what the answer would be. And bypassing the water softener isn't a problem just always wondered the answer to some of these questions so now that this thread is started I thought I would ask. And I do have some friends that own other amphibians and they use distilled with them so I wasn't thinking that Bill was giving me wrong advice because I know he would never do that, so it just made think again about the debate on distilled. And ya my tank isn't a living viv so maybe just sticking to what im using would be my safest bet. My firebellies aren't showing any signs of illness just reading this thread made me think if maybe I was using the wrong water the whole time. But one more question, what brands of spring water would be the best to use? I have a big jug of spring water from when I first got my pacman and never used it because I seen there was fluoride in it. Its called Canadian Springs and it says on the label beside the F for fluoride the numbers are 0.08.

[privet01]

I can't say anything knowledgeable about the fluoride except that there are places where water is naturally fluoridated. I think that's what got people thinking long ago why people in some area had good enamel on their teeth and others didn't. Some of these areas are well above the .08 which I think is the normal level water is artificially fluoridated to. As for whether it's bad for fbt's I don't know, but certainly these areas with naturally fluoridated water systems must have frogs and toads there. However maybe it's not in the surface water.

I've also seen people throw out that distilled water is bad, but seldom do any state why. And certainly many of us use it with no apparent harm. Distilled water is essentially pure water. Of course the purity depends on how it was distilled and handled afterward, so different brands may differ...... does that deserve a "duh"?<grin> So mixing with anything else, you can assume the ratios of whatever is in your other water is simply diluted to a lessor ratio. As with most toxins, they are only toxic when above a certain ratio or ppm. So if there is something you are concerned about in your main water, you can quickly remedy that by dilution with distilled. However as for chlorine, I don't know if water softeners remove that so allowing it to gas off would still be prudent. Chloramines though would be something to find out if your water company adds them. They don't gas off. But still in the point of my original question, is there a range of chloramines that is acceptable for FBT's??

Also, I think the big picture just requires you to be observant of your FBT's and know what the water quaility has been in the past and what it is now if you see something awry. As well know how all the other aspects of your enclosure affect the mini-environment you created.

Knowledge is good, but it sure creates a heck of a lot of questions!!!