*Hydration

[Dankmeleon]

Ever since I have been a little kid I've been very paranoid about what the water we drink could contain. I was paranoid yes, but I didn't refrain from the water fountain on the play ground.

lol to make a long story short here in florida the water is known to be very hard, full of minerals, like limestone and to contain a lot of chlorine.

It has been common sense to me that rain water and tap water vary tremendously, and I would never want to recreate the habitat of my very priceless chameleon with something so vital and potentially harmful...it has been my response to use filtered water. R/O or spring water. I see nothing wrong with this except for its very pricey to purchase (but cheaper to make your own)


with that being said, one of the recent home improvement ideas unrelated to chameleons was to have a very nice water softener installed on the main water line that goes into our home. This softener is using salt to deionize the water and clean it, leaving it at 0 ppm with no chlorine. this water is stripped of everything including beneficial components of water, but mostly junk.

my question to advanced chameleons keepers is this water safer or as safe to use on my chameleons full time as filtered or spring water.

in addition I have an R.O. unit (3 filter model with pressurized rez tank) top of the line from GE the type that goes on your sink for drinking water, would using the two of these methods in conjuction give me really clean water that recreates rain?

are any of you guys really paranoid about your water?

am I making too much of this or is it not widely believed that perfecting habitat can lead to longer life and happy chameleons?

 

[Justin Carl]

well, if you are paranoid about water i would just use filtered tap.
Im sure you already know that bottled water isnt the way to go.
My mom runs a food bank and knows a bunch about water and food safety.
so, with that being said all i drink is filtered tap, and same with my chameleons.
sure it may take a while, but i consider it worth it.
i do run into the days that i dont have the time to fill up all of their drippers and misters with filtered. on those days i use regular tap.

 

[Dankmeleon]

yea I don't think its harmful to use the tap to water the plants in there cage or at least get a little humidity in on a dry day, better than them dying of dehydration of course, but its long term that is my concern.

igor what type of filter do you use

 

[Cally95]

Hey Dankmeleon,

You may call yourself paranoid, but I think you are right to use the filtered water. I live in DC and it has one of the worst as far as chemicals added to it to make it "safe" (yeah right). I have a reef tank and I only use RO/DI, so I use that for my cham. I dont think there are a negatives to using the filtered water. Your cham will still get nutrients from its food and with filtered water it wont get the bad stuff that the regular tap has in it. I am not sure of the filter system you are talking about that is a water softener, I don't know as much about those. I am with you though on using the filtered water. Just my 2 cents,

Dell

 

[Justin Carl]

i have one of those fancy new refridgerators, and it has a really good filter.
Might i add the filters are 45$
so that is all i use.

 

[Brad Ramsey]

I understand the concern if you live in an area that has poor water (DC?)
Although quite recently (don't know about right now) some of the best drinking water was available straight from the tap in Manhattan, so city does not = bad water.
I guess I'm very lucky. We have fantastic water in Denver. Everyone gets it right out of the tap ... don't even treat it for the fish.
I don't like what water softeners do to the water, and if you're not diligent about changing filters ... your filtered water can become worse than the tap water you're trying to improve.
In my (very strong) opinion, bottled water is one of the biggest scams in the country ... and just about everyone fell for it!
Distilled water is not great for animals either.

-Brad

 

[Dankmeleon]

i agree, most brands of bottled water are scams, however some are not, it will clearly tell you if they have been treated with R.O.

Igor not to burst your bubble but I wouldn't get too comfy with that filter! You'd be surprised what a ppm check will leave behind in that, not to mention that does not remove any of the chlorates

good info though if anyone else has any info as to elemental makeup of water and its use for chameleons please add

 

[Dankmeleon]

Distilled water is not great for animals either.

-Brad

why is it that distilled water is not that great? What would you say would be the best reenactment of rain water besides rain water itself.

On that note I will let everyone know one of my biggest chameleon secrets is that my chams do amazing when they get to flush with rain water in the spring, nothing lets your cham flush better than an all day sunshower, wowowowowoowoww

 

[Brad Ramsey]

http://www.reptilechannel.com/repti.../amphibian-health/bloated-herp-water-problems

http://www.cornsnakes.net/care.php3

-Brad

 

[Sepioteuthis]

We had our water tested when we moved and though it's fairly hard, it contains only low levels of chlorine and TDS (total dissolved solids). For as far as I know hard water itself isn't bad for us or our reptiles (what it's bad for is your washing machine..). Depending on what animals you're keeping, softened water can actually be a lot worse because of all the salt it adds to the water. Many animals (humans, veiled chameleons, iguanas) simply excrete excess salt, but meller's chameleons for instance do not. When the excess salt isn't escreted it builds up in the body and can cause severe problems. I don't know what other chameleons can or cannot excrete salts, but I wouldn't risk it.
I've been watering my chameleons with regular tap water for years without problems. the only 2 things that I use treated water for is RO water for our salt water aquarium and dechlorinated water for our dart frogs.

 

[JimNPHX]

Great info! I never even gave it a thought about distilled water being void of everything except water.

Here in Phoenix the tap water is so bad they don't even use it to put out fires! (Ta dump dump)

I do not use distilled water but I do go to the machines and fill up jugs to use for the chams (and us). I know they use RO and something else for filtration but I do not know if the salt and minerals are removed.

I guess I better go check

Jim

 

[SuperRad]

Great info! I never even gave it a thought about distilled water being void of everything except water.

Here in Phoenix the tap water is so bad they don't even use it to put out fires! (Ta dump dump)

I do not use distilled water but I do go to the machines and fill up jugs to use for the chams (and us). I know they use RO and something else for filtration but I do not know if the salt and minerals are removed.

I guess I better go check

Jim

What?? There's water here in phoenix? Unbelievable. I would like to see this So-Called water sometime Jim. - This statement will be more suitable for summer

 

[Dankmeleon]

Great info! I never even gave it a thought about distilled water being void of everything except water.

Here in Phoenix the tap water is so bad they don't even use it to put out fires! (Ta dump dump)

I do not use distilled water but I do go to the machines and fill up jugs to use for the chams (and us). I know they use RO and something else for filtration but I do not know if the salt and minerals are removed.

I guess I better go check

Jim

yes the minerals are being removed

 

[Dankmeleon]

in florida, the water table isn't very deep beneath land level, nothing is really more than a handful of feet above sea level, and there are underground caves called aquifers made of limestone clay where the water travels and is purified, some of the water on the deepest levels is the cleanest because it travels and is filtered through all of that compact earth which grabs out impurities, not to mention its completely dark and no bacterias or fungi can spawn. However, the more shallow levels, where most of our drinking water comes from , is subject to being contaminated with a lot of calcium and lime then treated with a mild chlorate solution to sanitize it. This is why you'll see a white residue on the leaves of your plants, or your chameleons skin doesn't appear to be as hydrated as it should be.

new owners should make careful note of this, I know it seems obvious but when you are an inexperienced owners, months can go by where things are not obvious

Your chameleon will look A LOT healthier, his skin will have a nice moisturized sheen to it if allowed to endure a few mild rainstorms(not heavy tstorms, you don't want to drown the kid)

as opposed to someone who is providing care for a chameleon, and using tap water from locations with poor or hard tap quality

I can then draw the conclusion that the people say the life span of a cham in captivity is relatively low, and this may be a huge reason why people in general have this conclusion. Esp the older generations.

this hydration I speak of, nutrition, lighting, and clean and lush caging, are the most important factors to successfully owning a chameleon

 

[DrewNYC]

why would you think that rain water is so clean and good?? yes our water in NYC is considered to be very good but the rain is called "acid rain" everything that goes into the air, exhaust, smoke, etc, etc just gets pulled down in the rain. you may not have as much industry or population but did you actually ever test that rain water?? maybe it is all the 'stuff' in the rain that makes your cham's feel better??

drew

 

[Brad Ramsey]

I can then draw the conclusion that the people say the life span of a cham in captivity is relatively low, and this may be a huge reason why people in general have this conclusion. Esp the older generations.

The life span of chameleons in captivity is often much longer than it would be in the wild.

 

[LaserGecko]

my question to advanced chameleons keepers is this water safer or as safe to use on my chameleons full time as filtered or spring water.

I'm certainly not an advanced cham keeper, but as long as you change your filters regularly, the only difference between the RO water you're producing and the stuff from the water store is probably ozonation (and not all of them do that). Just keep up on the maintenance (filters and membrane when necessary) and you're good.