# Normal city water not good for frogs?



## Curt61 (Jan 16, 2007)

Hey, does it hurt your frogs to have city water in their tanks? City water kill or hurt tads? I heard that if you leave your water sit out over night it gets rid of something that is in city water, does anybody know if this is true?
My plants, lizards, fish, and snake, doesn't seem to mind it, just wondering if frogs are more picky or not.
Thanks, Curt.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Curt,

If you allow tap water to sit for a day, any chlorine that has been added will dissipate from it. However, if your water company is using chloramine in addition (not uncommon during summer months), that's a bit more problematic. If you are interested in using your tap water than I advise that you dechlorinate it using a number of options available at the pet store and normally used in the fish hobby.

Finally, I would not advise misting the terrarium with anything besides distilled or RO water as mineral deposits will build up over time on the plants and glass using tap water. 

Bill

P.S. You can always contact your water company and ask about their use of chlorine versus chloramine.


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## Curt61 (Jan 16, 2007)

Ok, I will make sure I leave my water out for a day then. I can just wipe the hard water stains off of the leaves and glass can't I? If I just use well water will it help or not? Thanks, Curtis


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## rbrightstone (Apr 14, 2004)

Hardwater stains are hard mineral deposits, and can't be wiped off easily. They need to be taken off the glass with a mild acid (common vineger). You can wipe the deposits off plants with waxy leaves, but any others would be very difficuld to remove any mineral deposits. As far as well water, that can also be very hard, and the quality of the water can vary a lot from one well to the next. As Bill stated, distilled or RO is the safest to mist with.


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## RGB (Jan 15, 2006)

^Beat me to it!

Hard water stains will not just wipe off without using vinegar or lemons. It's much easier to just use RO or Distilled so you don't have to deal with that. I buy gallons of Distilled at the grocery store for less than $1 each. I go through one to two a month.


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## Frogsarethashit (Jan 14, 2007)

Curt61 said:


> Ok, I will make sure I leave my water out for a day then. I can just wipe the hard water stains off of the leaves and glass can't I? If I just use well water will it help or not? Thanks, Curtis


Instead of letting water stand for a day, why not goto the petstore and buy a $3 bottle of solution that will last you a whole year which removes chlorine, chloramine, and heavy metals? That will be much less problematic for you in the very near future.


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## Curt61 (Jan 16, 2007)

Hey, thanks for the information guys, my plants in my tanks have waxy leaves so I guess I don't have to worry about that alot, but I will probley buy some distilled water from the grocery store and use that from now on.

Thanks again, Curt


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## spydrmn12285 (Oct 24, 2006)

Why not buy a brita or pur attachment to your kitchen faucet? You have water good for the frogs and a free source of drinking water for yourself! :lol:


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## Curt61 (Jan 16, 2007)

Hey, well I'm 17 and don't have alot of money, my mom doesn't care if the water she drinks is city water or not, she wouldn't want it on her sink anyway.


Curt


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## Rambo67 (Jun 12, 2006)

Then your best bet is probably just to pick up cheap bottles of distilled water from you common grocery store, as someone else stated is less than/around $0.99 for a gallon. Depending on how many tanks you have and your humidity needs, youd be surprised how long a bottle lasts you. You should also start using this for your other herps too (or, at minimum, let the water sit out).


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## Curt61 (Jan 16, 2007)

You can but gallons of distlied water for about 50-70 cents at walmart or meijers. Right now I am just leaving my water out for a day, I will probley get a few gallons next time I go to the store.

Thanks, Curt


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## Rambo67 (Jun 12, 2006)

Wal Mart is cheaper than where i get it then...might have to check out my local walmart.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I say use tap water for most of your needs except misting. However i have used tapwater almost exclusively for years and if you do it frequently, no issues with it accumulating on the glass. If your tap water is good, some say it helps prevent spindley leg in tadpoles because it isn't too pure.


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

I've used tap water for years for misting and if you don't spray the glass directly, you shouldn't have problems with mineral buildup. This is hard to do with glass aquariums because of the sides, but I never cared or designed my tanks to cover most of the glass. Condensation will be void of minerals because it's evaporated water (in theory). I have minor issues with mineral buildup on plants, but nothing I'm going to get too concerned with. Having said all that, I'll be getting an RO unit soon because I always seem to need pure water when I can't get any.


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## Cmirbach (Feb 8, 2007)

you can look up your cities water quality test results online... 
Chlorine-BAD Chloramine-BADDER (doesnt dissipate on its own) Calcium+Magnesium-BAD (raises pH unless at very low levels) 
side note on mineral deposits: A common misconseption is that distilled water's hardness levels are zero (calcium and magnesium are the biggest perpetrators) for instance, my towns water hardness is rated at 16 ppm, which is still to high in my book, but poland springs can be as high as half that (not being much of an improvement for me) however your city may have have hard water (lets say 100 ppm) in which case it can become dangerous to plants and dart frogs (who live in an acidic environment and require very low general water hardness) some products can remove cloramine also remove heavy metals, such as iron and zinc (which are actually important to plant growth at low levels "1-2 ppm seems good") but they have no effect on water hardness from what i know. if this post makes no sense and you want a better summary of what i know just PM me, im over tired right now and have a feeling what i have said is comming out as gibberish.
to sum up what i have tried to say and what Defaced and some of the other veterans of dendroboard have said in this forum... TAP WATER IS BAD
Brita wont take care of everything, try a commercial freshwater water softener media, use decaying leaf matter to lower pH, and buy a 5 dollar bottle of aqaurium safe declorinator.


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## Cmirbach (Feb 8, 2007)

i take back what i said about bottled water, poland spring water is not put through R.O. so it still has some minerals and generally unwanted elements for vivarium application, HOWEVER, disani water, aquafina, and others, including i believe the cheap store brand bottled waters are taken from tap water and put through vigorous filtration, including RO. unless your running a huge vivarium buying these will be alot cheaper than any other method.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "and what Defaced and some of the other veterans of dendroboard have said in this forum... TAP WATER IS BAD "Endsnip

I would have to say that this absolute statement is premature... Tap water is not necessarily bad... 

I have reared a number of different anurans (including dendrobatids (D. auratus, D. tinctorius, D. azureus, Epidobates tricolor and D. ventrimaculatus as well as red eye tree frogs, hour glass tree frogs, masked tree frogs (Smilesca phaoeta and now currently Pipa parva) in tap water that has a pH of 7.4 and a total hardness of between 70-100 ppm right out of the tap. I allow it to degass and dechlorinate... 

Ed


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Please don't use my name as an anchor point to your augment if you can't get what I said right. I've used tap water for the past five years and will still use it for some things. It's far from bad you just have to be informed about it.


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## Cmirbach (Feb 8, 2007)

yeah, sorry, since i wrote that i took a nap, lol, i think i just fabricated in my daze that you said that... anyways, i agree tap water isnt always bad, for instance the only REALLY bad thing in my towns tap water is chloramine, the rest of the stuff in it just causes minor and easily fixed problems. i just wanted to get the point across that checking your municipal water supply quality test results is a must. also, i bought three 2.5 gallon RO filtered water from walmart for under 5 dollars, forget if i mentioned that in this forum or another, should take care of a vivarium containing under 10 gallons of standing water for at least a month. you can even mix it will some tap water to get all the good trace elements you get from the tap. again, sorry Defaced.


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## Cmirbach (Feb 8, 2007)

Oh and to Ed, i know the research shows hard water can have a negative effect on central american and amazonian fish and plants, i dont know its effect on frogs or tropical plants/fish from other areas of the world. i also know that if you have a mature vivarium with decaying leaf litter etc. your pH and water hardness is probably fixing itself (whether or not slightly base pH and water hardness effects your viv), which i think you mentioned in one of my forums actually.


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## LNS71 (Mar 2, 2007)

Cmirbach said:


> A common misconseption is that distilled water's hardness levels are zero


Distilled water must, legally, contain less than 10ppm total disolved solids. (In the USA, that is.) Some companies have even more strict standards. For hobbyist purposes that's virtually zero hardness.


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