Why You Should Never Use Tap Water For Your Chameleon

[Zen Reptiles]

I never really considered the effect of tap water on chameleons until I took a clutch of baby panthers to a reptile expo in Red Deer, Alberta...where the water is very hard. Within 24 hours, all 30 babies were showing swelling and edema. Our hotel sink, toilet, and shower were clogged with minerals. I bought some Aquafina water to spray them with and the problem subsided. I had always used Reverse Osmosis for my chams and never had a problem, so I was shocked to see how quickly a drastic change affected them.

Chameleons evolved to drink rain water, which is distilled water (steam) - this is the purest form of water in nature. Most exposure trials show that reptiles, and amphibians in particular, are extremely sensitive to endocrine disrupting chemicals and pharmaceuticals that are now found in almost all tap water.

I've actually been in the water treatment industry now for 12 years, supplying residential, commercial, and food grade filtration to businesses and homes. Every single day, I am shocked with what I learn is being discovered in our tap water. They just keep concluding more studies which reaffirm my belief that there is no safe tap water, and tap water is good for flushing down toilets and washing cars ONLY. I honestly believe it will be common knowledge in 25 years that tap water of all kinds is a leading cause of disease, just the same way we view smoking now compared to 50 years ago.

Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. Also, just because they say it's not there, doesn't mean it's not there - the government does not test for literally *most* things in tap water.

In Walkerton, Ontario where 2300 people fell ill, and 7 people died during E. coli outbreaks...the government was found negligent because they knew there was a problem several days before the outbreak and failed to inform both the health authorities and the public.

Remember, we've only been treating water for about 130 years. We only just started looking at the carcinogenic and mutagenic effects of chlorination byproducts (CBPs) since the 1990s. We've only just recently done studies on the effects of EDCs on amphibians and reptiles. We only just started banning BPA for babies since 2008. We've only just started to look at the effects of Trihalomethanes and Haloacetic Acids. And we HAVE NOT started yet to look at the chemical interactions that take place when all these hundreds of thousands of components mix in the water supply....The World Health Organization actually calls this a 'Knowledge Gap.'

I recently wrote this blog article to enlighten people about how tap water might affect their reptiles. Please have a look and feel free to use it as a reference.

http://reptiles.guru/chameleon/tap-water-chameleon/

 

[Carlton]

The most important answer to the much-too-common question "Is tap water safe for my chams?" is, "it depends". Don't assume it is or it isn't. Find out what's in it...what your municipality treats it with, what's added to it before it hits your faucet (such as fluorides or softener salt), and also what the source is like (well water that's high in minerals, organics, sulphur, iron, etc). Get a test kit and find out on your own. Don't expect a forum to be able to answer your question either. There are too many variables. Don't expect a simple countertop filter pitcher to remove what you don't want. There are many different types of filters and most don't do much more than improve the taste.

I installed a pretty basic RO filter on my kitchen sink faucet and have used it for all my pets for many years. Works great and I don't worry as much about changes in the quality at the source.

 

[Zen Reptiles]

I very strongly disagree, and as you say the much-too-common question, I find the sentiment you share as a much-too-common and inadequate answer. Which is exactly why I felt like posting this.

It is much more sensible to assume the water is not safe. Simply based on the vast quantities of empirical data available on water contamination - globally. There are many nations and entities which have done studies on water contamination, outlining their effects on both us and animals. I will admit, it is hard to find and decipher some of the information, which is why most people do not know.

Most government-sponsored studies are on waste water, however (as it affects the environment), and the gov't has a way of 'pussyfooting' around issues of tap water for human use because it's such a contentious issue - Flint, Michigan as an example. It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to replace the infrastructure in the United States, so there is a very strong monetary reason why they do not want people to be concerned about their water.

It's not so easy to just 'find out what's in it' because tests which would show toxaphene, DDT, PCBs, CBPs, AHAs, POPs, BPA, Pesticides, Fertilizers, EDCs, Pharmaceuticals etc etc etc (over 80,000 chemicals used in North America, 200,000 worldwide...not including pharmaceuticals).....would cost well into the several thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars...if not millions in some cases of thorough testing. This is a big failing when the advice is given to simply 'find out what's in there' - the analysis is usually for recoverable metals and minerals such as calcium, lead, barium, copper, uranium, etc.... There is absolutely, 100%, no way you can judge the quality of water from a simple, basic analysis. The issue is so much more expansive than 'chlorine, calcium and iron' in the water.

What about the happy fish swimming in the St. Lawrence River. You won't find 'Prozac' listed in a basic analysis alongside Potassium and Selenium. Simply because it's a) too expensive to test for, and b) unregulated, so why bother. A test kit from an aquarium shop is not going to help whatsoever.

Here's a perfect example: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/20...threatened-fish-fine-water-quality-discharge/
In San Jose, in 2014, regular treated tap water (suited for your consumption) leaked out from a broken water line into a creek and killed a bunch of fish.

The best part? Not even the first time that happened: http://www.chloramine.org/articles_pdf/090531_fishkill_Polhemus_Creek.pdf

Not far from where I live here in BC, Canada, there was a breach of a mining company's tailings pond which leached over 4 Billion gallons of wastewater into waterways. The biggest event of it's kind in Canadian history. The extent of the damage is predicted to "remain unknown for years or even decades', as toxicants slowly accumulate in the environment. " It's very close to drinking water quality, the water in our tailings," says Imperial Metals president, Bryan Kynoch.
If that's not a testament to the low standards for water quality, I don't know what is.

Don't mean to butt heads with you, I appreciate and welcome your input.

 

[TheVeiledProphet]

He he he. He said "butt heads". He he he.

 

[Zen Reptiles]

 

[rambonerzilla]

So after all that what would you guys recommend I use in my mister and fogger.... I think the fogger should be fine as is with any water being how it uses ultrasonic whatever to evaporate it... am I wrong ..? Either way I need to know what water is recommended to buy for my cham to drink.

 

[bobcochran]

I'm wondering what effect you giving your lizards only distilled water and then changing to tap water Had on them, pretty radical change, especially for very young animals. There are some interesting studies about human children being raised in a too sterilized environment, making them more susceptible to common pathogens, asthma, and other maladies.
I'm not disagreeing with you about the risks of drinking tap water (something I've done my entire life, being raised on very hard water and preferring the taste of it), or that arboreal lizards get natures version of distilled water, except that the entire world's atmosphere is polluted. Just curious about the effects of the radical change you introduced to very young chameleons.
That being said, I use tap water for all my chameleons (23 years) and haven't noticed any problems or edema other than what might occur in my montane species from commercial crickets sporadically, from whatever they happen to be feeding the crickets at the time. I do however live in a pretty unpolluted area.

 

[Remkon]

So after all that what would you guys recommend I use in my mister and fogger.... I think the fogger should be fine as is with any water being how it uses ultrasonic whatever to evaporate it... am I wrong ..? Either way I need to know what water is recommended to buy for my cham to drink.

For a longer life expectancy of your equipment it's probably best to user osmosis water.
For the health of your animal it strongly depends on where you live and how the quality of water is over there.

I use tab water since I'm confident that Dutch drinking water is of good quality.
My pump and my humidifier will live a bit shorter but that's better than the time I would use and the water I would waste on getting a bucket of osmosis water every other day.

 

[niels99]

Guys. Join me here in the netherlands. We officially have the cleanest tap water on earth. We are the only country where the quality of tap water is higjer than water from natural sources.
You and ur chams are welcome

#watercountry

 

[Rayzilla]

Guys. Join me here in the netherlands. We officially have the cleanest tap water on earth. We are the only country where the quality of tap water is higjer than water from natural sources.
You and ur chams are welcome

#watercountry

You should bottle it and export them to other countries.

 

[guanagator]

I'm in Florida and use tap water everyday on my chameleons outside, never had an issue. Lots of us use showers for chameleons as well. In fact moving my quads back inside this summer where they get RO water caused one to get an edema, I don't think the water was a factor more the change natural sun exposure. Like Bob said above going from all RO to a hard water for babies may have shocked their system. I do agree our water isn't treated as it should be and often has trace amounts of pharmaceuticals and industrial byproducts that are not tested for however the next smoking? Little extreme, think sodas and sugary drinks may beat out water for that honor.

 

[SocialNumb]

This is why I wear a suit everywhere I go. Don't laugh, it's fashionable. If it's not the water, it's the air that will get you or your cham. That's why my cham only goes out in an environment controlled bubble along with my dog if we're not hermetically sealed in our home. We all also stopped eating and live on love only. We all plan to live at least to 200 years of age easy.

On a serious note, is RO a good method to clean water. As in, does it get all the nasties out? Or do we not know because the expense? Thanks.

 

[Rayzilla]

What about boiling the water first?

Here in Hong Kong we generally boil the tap water before drinking so we usually keep water that has been boiled in glass bottles.

 

[nightanole]

Perhaps we should rethink this. There is a huge difference between desalinated, city, and well water. "tap" water is a little ambiguous. As for chams only drinking pure h20 in the wild, its running off of trees/leaves/ etc and 10,000 ft of unfiltered air.
Plus the amount of minerals in "regular" water is so low its not even funny. Even hard water, you would have to drink 20L a day to get your recomended min level of calcuim, and thats assuming you can absorb inorganic...

 

[bobcochran]

Boiling water only kills live organisms, if you have bacteria in your water definitely boil it. Boiling may actually concentrate heavy metals and other chemicals that don't go into a gaseous state below 212F., because of evaporation of the water.

 

[Zen Reptiles]

Water for mister/fogger: Some foggers require the water to conduct electricity to work, so you may need to add just a very small pinch of salt to the pure water (pure water does not conduct electricity.) As mentioned, for the lifespan of your equipment you should be using RO or Distilled water. Mineral buildup will gunk up the machinery. For misting systems, you should use RO or Distilled.

Boiling: As mentioned, the steam leaving is what you want - that's the pure water going away to make another cloud in the sky. What's left behind is a more concentrated soup. The reason you're told to boil your water is to prevent lawsuits from bacteria/parasite infection. In Walkerton, Ontario, those 7 people that died cost the government $200 Million...when a boil notice would have been free, or chlorination would have cost less than $10,000 per year.

In my experience here in BC, which is also touted as having the best water on Earth.....there has not been one instance where water was pure in either ground or surface water, treated or otherwise. Seriously there have been awards won for some water as 'best in the world' here, and yet the chlorine in that city is now 64 ppm. The average ppm for chlorine is .05 - 1.0.... The lab we deal with says that at 64ppm, the chlorine would oxidize the bulk of nutrients in baby formula if someone was using tap water to make it. Yet the residents of that city have this fanatical dogma (read: delusion) that their water is the best in the world because they won an award 15 years ago.

To people that say "I drank this water all my life" I call outright as a lie. You don't drink the same water glass-to-glass or day-to-day. Water is not isolated to some secret coffer underneath your house, water is transient, it's an aqueous solvent of which the nature changes drastically depending on the particles it picks up or infuses with in real-time. Rain clouds from Asia reach North America in just a few days or weeks, containing Persistant Organic Pollutants which are banned here. Because they are banned here, they're not tested for. Only one government study I found showed that Toxaphene concentrations reached 600 ppb in the livers of freshwater fish here in BC, much higher than the federally acceptably level of 6.3 ppb. Toxpahene was banned in the early 1970s and this study was done in 1998.

When you receive a water report from your city, it's taken before going through the pipes. For my city, I have a test from the treatment plant, and I have one from halfway through the city (both done at the same time, same day, by the same lab, by the public works department). It shows elevated levels of aluminum, lead, chlorine, and several other heavy metals after going through miles of pipes. The analysis from the treatment plant was not at all accurate to what people get through their kitchen sink.

I would also point out that civil servants have lied to me before, in three instances. One instance they told me they do not test the water - I went to the water treatment facility and talked to a janitor who got the report for me which showed high levels of all the trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids. Another secretary at a city hall made me pay her $100 for it, which is illegal because it's public information - it showed elevated levels of trihalomethanes, haloacetic acids, extremely high chlorine, arsenic and lead. In my own city, the chief water analyst at our $63Million treatment plant sat there for 25 minutes trying to add a watermark to the sheet "Not Official Data"....it showed pesticides, high aluminum, lead, elevated chlorine, elevated chloroform, as well as the THMs and AHAs. He couldn't figure out how to add the watermark so he just printed it off for me and made me sign a declaration that I had this information and was not allowed to show anyone (which again, is illegal). If I had not been in the industry, and known exactly what was going on, I would have been like most average people and just trusted the 'expert.'

Let's just take some sample data here from Guanagator who posted above. They say they use tap water every day and had no problem. That's a fine opinion, but that doesn't mean the water is good or safe or pure so let's find out the truth. http://www.coab.us/DocumentCenter/View/7832 is the water report for Atlantic Beach, Florida (the location in their profile). A quick glance at that shows it's not very thorough at all - . It also shows there are both Trihalomethanes and Haloacetic Acids. The Maximum Contaminant Level Goals are about half of what the threshold is for human consumption (considering a healthy average weight of 150 for women and 190 for men.) How does this affect a 150 gram chameleon? How do the chlorination byproducts affect their sensitive eyes? Their skin? Their mucous membranes in the nose and mouth? How does the evaporated chlorine affect their lungs? We know chlorination byproducts cause bladder and rectal cancer in humans, as well as kidney and liver damage. How does this affect a small chameleon in the short term? How do these heavy metals affect the kidneys?

The test shows ANTIMONY, BARIUM, CHROMIUM, FLUORIDE, LEAD, NICKEL, SELENIUM, SODIUM, COPPER, CHLORINE, TRIHALOMETHANES, HALOACETIC ACIDS.

The chlorine level of 2.9 is about the same as a swimming pool which is generally 1.5 - 3. This is quite high, many cities I work in are between 0.03 - 0.5

As you can see this city water test leaves many unanswered questions: This is average values, what are the highest and and what times of the year? What are the lowest readings? Where are the values for all the other metals such as Aluminum, Uranium, Arsenic. If there are AHAs and THMs present, what other chemical interactions have taken place? Where is the test for pharmaceuticals? What about fertilizers and pesticides?

I will leave you with this to consider: the books must be balanced by a cost:use ratio. Up to 90% of tap water is used to flush down toilets, fill pools, water lawns, wash cars, shower/bath, rinse off driveways, industrial use, garden centers, agriculture.....why would they purify this water to 'pure drinking standard' when 90% is essentially for non-consumption. There is no justification for the government to purify water when this factor alone is analyzed by the budget makers.

 

[WAMBO]

Boiling water only kills live organisms, if you have bacteria in your water definitely boil it. Boiling may actually concentrate heavy metals and other chemicals that don't go into a gaseous state below 212F., because of evaporation of the water.

Yep.
RO systems are now inexpensive and not difficult to install yourself. There are plenty of youtube vids demonstrating installations as well as a few at some of the vendor sites. 16 years ago, I paid to have two installed, then the yearly filter change. I saw how to change the filters and member on youtube and now save a lot of money doing it myself.

 

[Carlton]

Perhaps we should rethink this. There is a huge difference between desalinated, city, and well water. "tap" water is a little ambiguous.
Plus the amount of minerals in "regular" water is so low its not even funny. Even hard water, you would have to drink 20L a day to get your recomended min level of calcuim, and thats assuming you can absorb inorganic...

This is really all I meant to express in my response earlier. That so called "tap" water IS an ambiguous term, that you can't ASSUME anything about it being safe or not, and you can't expect a hobby forum to give you a definite answer, as YMMV. You can educate yourself about what might be in it (intentional treatment chemicals) and you'll have to decide how deep your distrust of sources goes. I have snowpack/glacial runoff well water and live upstream of just about all of my small town's septic systems. There is no agricultural runoff or other human-created contaminants (except for atmospheric deposition of course). I have analyzed my well so know its pH, that it contains a high level of calcium and "clear water" iron and that its quite low in selenium. It also contains sulphur, tannins, as well as trace amounts of arsenic. Salmon spawn in the river that probably percolates to my water table, so in late fall their remains skew the chemistry of the well. This is the sort of information you can get about your water so due diligence has its place.

 

[Shenanigans043]

My local city water has chlorine levels between 1.2 - around 1.5. But I use tap( well water) in my for house everything. Only issue is the battle against hard water stains.

 

[Zen Reptiles]

If you live on the edge of the earth like Alaska and meet all those unlikely (1 in 10,000,000) requirements, your tap water may be alright. If you are the majority of Earth's population, this is not the case. In terms of chameleons, any assertion you make on water based on health guidelines are for humans and will be foolishly misguided. We know for certain that chemicals in water affect smaller animals much quicker and much more detrimentally than in us. There is a reason reptiles and amphibians are used in these studies...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147651315301093 60% - 100% of freshwater Bass developing eggs in their testicles from endocrine disrupting chemicals in water.
http://aerg.canberra.edu.au/library/sex_reptile/1996_Guillette_etal_EDCs_in_alligators.pdf Alligators with abnormal reproductive organs and testosterone levels.
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/8/5476.long Atrazine (most commonly used pesticide in USA) causing eggs to develop in testicles of male frogs.
http://web.kitsapsun.com/archive/1998/11-28/0018_environment__airborne_chemicals_f.html chemicals coming from Asia into Westcoast watersheds found to bio-accumulate in fish.
http://www.futurity.org/bpa-turtle-reproduction-899802/ Turtle eggs exposed to BPA turn 100% female, overriding natural process of temperature sex determination.
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2013/toxic-turtles Waste accumulation in sea water is also accumulating in sea turtles, depressing immune function. (yes this is sea water, but these chemicals leach into the sea from fresh water where we draw our tap water from).
http://www.serc.si.edu/education/resources/watershed/stories/salamanders.aspx The Natural History of Amphibians describes environmental contaminants as "closest to being a "single cause" behind widespread amphibian declines."
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=14491 Shingleback skinks developing anemia due to agricultural spray.
https://greenrage.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/earth-week-environment-posts-1-oil-spills-and-iguanas/ Galapagos iguanas suffered a severe population decline after a low-level oil spill which altered the digestive bacteria in their gut - this led to malabsorption and ultimately starvation.

In summary, most of the inadequate and blasé advice that you do find on a hobby forum is in regards to human studies and government statistics, and personal opinions. This is exactly why I posted this thread.. I've been researching water quality for 12 years now and I can tell you that it is very difficult to connect the dots, get honest/thorough information, and in some cases there have been government documents deleted/censored such as the case of "Aluminum and Human Health" published by Health Canada in 2004 and deleted/censored from the archives in November of 2015. What we do know is that reptiles are affected by these interactions more than you are.

Having traveled around the world, and seeing places such as Borneo with a high degree of biodiversity devastated by palm plantations, I predict in the not so distant future that many species of reptiles and amphibians will exist only in private collections and collectors such as those present will require a paradigm shift to a higher standard of husbandry in order to preserve those species until they can be reintroduced to secondary growth or controlled ecosystems. Our understanding of water quality will play a crucial role in this process, particularly when endocrine disrupting chemicals are present. As China's demand for oldgrowth wood from Madagascar increases with an increasing middle class who desire and can afford it, chameleons will be one of the first groups, along with golden toads of Panama and Mexican Axolotls, to depend on captive populations.

It is not simply something to brush off as 'it depends where you live.' Of course, to the general hobbyist with one chameleon, maybe they have no reason to care and an 'it depends' attitude will be enough. But for those of us who have kept chameleons for our entire lives and have vested interest in the understanding of perfect husbandry, there is reason to care.

Another reference for the fact that this is a severely underesearched area: Ecotoxicology of Amphibians and Reptiles, Second Edition. It's over $200, but luckily there is google books where half of it may be viewed for free:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=__...phibians and Reptiles, Second Edition&f=false