Poll: Tap water or purified water?

I've always just used regular tap water for all of my animals. Which do you use? The only reason i'm asking is because i've recently talked to a person who absolutely refuses to give tapwater to any of his animals, but he drinks it himself all the time. I just thought it might be interesting to see what you guys thought about it. Thanks.

Bottled is all i use, even for myself, lol.

i personally use distilled water or reverse osmosis drinking water.. i get it at wally world like 58 centsa gallon......... our water here is HORRIBLE we dont even drink it lmao.......... i know alot of people who use tap water but let it sit out overnight to allow it to dechlorinate,,,, thats what i used to do years ago before i moved here where the water is crappy litterally im actually glad we live up stream or i might accidentally swallow a sanitized turd... smalles sh!tty too yuck

My "environment and society" professor (at the university of California, Santa Cruz) said that tap water is just as good as purified water. I don't know though, becuase my tap water deffinately smells like chlorine and none of my bottled water does.

Matt

Hmmm, thats interesting. We have really good water here in Tulsa. Our water is good enough that it is uncommon to hear of someone not wanting to drink it. I guess thats why it came as such a surprise to hear my friend say that he would never use tapwater (for his animals anyway). You guys are convincing me to switch to bottled, lol. I can tell i'm already on that downward spiral and its only a matter of time before i give in. 58 cents a gallon from wal-mart doesnt sound so bad.

i'd rather my water smell like chlorine than poo... maybe its psychosomatic.. even though its sanitized reused water and it at one point has been through someones body (water plants and sewage plants folks)... ok so they put it in the river and then the water is pumped fro the river or damn of adjoining aquifers or whatever but still BUT besides all that the poo smells just distracts me... i could have a piece of strawberry cheesecake right in front of me and i know how awesome it is and i see someone else eating it and enjpoying it but if it smells like poo... no way

Our water doesnt have any connection with where our wastes go. Thats a completely different river on the other side of the city. Ours comes from a small lake. I'm surprised to hear that your towns drinking water is pumped from the waste water.

some of our city hehe we live up stream and it still smells like crap LOL........ ahhh i wish i was back home on our good ol well water....... man we had awesom,e well water not crappy or orange or gritty best water man ::: sniff ::: those were the days

Here is another option to buying bottled water - which by the way is often drawn from the same sources as tap water. Buy yourself a filter that fits over the tap, or buy a filtered pitcher. With the filter on the tap, you can filter the water as you please because it can be turned on or off with the flip of a switch or by turning a dial. With the pitcher, you fill a reservoir and the water filters into the main compartment by gravity. Either way you get filtered water from which 99.9 (I think that is the number they tout) percent of the biologicals have been removed, as well as such nasties as lead and other harmful chemicals. It also removes chlorine and chloramine as far as I am aware.

I prefer to drink this filtered water in the warmer months when they seem to put more chlorine into my local drinking water. Makes it taste better. I don't mind chlorine in my water though, nor in my herps water. I use it for drinking water for snakes and lizards and torts but not for frogs to splash around in. I was to a dentist last year, first time in about 10 years. Look ma no cavities!

As for my herps, I don't see it hurting them at all. In fact many sources of water are naturally chlorinated and/or fluoridated. There was actually a study once done on the fossilized teeth of ancient people showing that they who lived near such sources of water had fewer cavities (from something like National Geographic or Natural History magazine). I don't buy the whole idea behind the movie Dr. Strangelove about what is put into our water doing harm, not even to herps except possibly amphibians - but I even doubt that somewhat.

One other thing about filtered water that you filter yourself, you know whether or not the water as actually filtered as opposed to being put into a bottle and then you being told it was filtered. In today's world of terrorism fears it is comforting to know my filter would likely filter out most anything they could get into the reservoirs; that is when I remember to drink the filtered stuff....
All the best,
Glenn B

Something potentially of note, more for amphibians than reptiles...

While chlorine will end up evaporating off if water is left uncovered for twenty four hours or so, Chloramine (chlorine bonded with ammonia) will not. And is being used more and more frequently in towns and cities all over the country.

Small RO units or culligan's filters aren't too expensive and even the cheapest ones can turn out twenty or thirty gallons a day.