Reptisafe or Bottled or Distilled?

[calialli]

Hi all,
I have a juvenile Red Foot, Pebbles, and I was noticing that although I treat her drinking and misting water with Reptisafe there are still hard water spots on her enclosure. Seeing these spots I tried to find something online, as usual it was very difficult, so I figured people would have opinions on here! Should I use bottled water for her drinking/misting water? Should I use distilled (I saw somewhere that this water is sometimes "too" pure)? Or is the Reptisafe okay to use to treat her water?

 

[Tom]

Dechlorinator does not prevent hard water stains from the dissolved minerals in the water. For drinking, plain untreated tap water is fine. So is bottled water. For misting, distilled or captured, filtered rainwater is fine and won't mae hard water stains on the tortoise or the enclosure glass.

 

[Madkins007]

Tom is right, but as usual I feel an obsessive compulsion to elaborate on a couple bits.

Hard water in itself is actually kind of good for many animals since the things that make it hard- iron, calcium, etc., are beneficial to the animals.

Chlorine itself is fairly neutral to most animals (some fish, amphibians, etc. are really bothered by it though). Chlorine also dissipates into the air after about 24 hours, so you only need to let the water sit for a while.

The bigger concern is that many towns are going to chloramines- a mix of chlorine and ammonia. Chloramines DO NOT dissipate and are considered to be hazardous to fish, amphibians, and reptiles.

If your town uses chloramines, you need to use a chemical treatment or carbon filtration for your animals, or use distilled or spring (NOT TAP) water. (Note- not all bottled waters are 100% safe as many are tap water from places that use chloramines and they are only treated enough to be safe for people.)

I did not know about this until fairly recently, so my torts have been with untreated water for some time and seem OK... but I am also unsure what effects this might have in the long run.

 

[Tom]

Elaborate away Mark...

My area has been using the chloramines for as long as I can remember. I always use Amquel for fish and amphibians, but for decades, I've been using straight untreated tap water for mammals and reptiles. If there is any effect, I have not seen it.

 

[Madkins007]

Chloramines and torts. Yeah. I sort of wonder if the warnings are because SOME reptiles are really sensitive to it, so they CYA by issuing a very general warning.