Safe water

PoseidonTheChameleon

Chameleon Enthusiast
So I had a thought, most of us know about reptisafe for your water. But what would be a serious effect from not using it? Just curious because out of all the questions we ask people like "what uvb are you using?" Or "how often do you mist?", the question "do you have safe water" is not one of them. So how do we know if water is causing an issue? Or is reptisafe just a way to get your money?
 
I only used things like ReptiSafe when I had turtles and had to make safe large amounts of water at one time. I too wonder why we don’t ask about what type of water is used, but I guess we have to assume that people aren’t giving their chams water that they themselves wouldn’t drink. When I knew zip about chams, I used filtered fridge water in my hand mister...same water that I drink and give my cats and dog.
 
So I had a thought, most of us know about reptisafe for your water. But what would be a serious effect from not using it? Just curious because out of all the questions we ask people like "what uvb are you using?" Or "how often do you mist?", the question "do you have safe water" is not one of them. So how do we know if water is causing an issue? Or is reptisafe just a way to get your money?

The devil is in the details. Depends on the tap water! If you don't know what treatment chemicals happen to be in your municipal household water get it analyzed so you do know. If the water utility treats with chlorine that's pretty easy to get rid of. Let the water age in an open bucket overnight before using it. If they add chloramines, add fluoride or other substances you might need a true chemical treatment such as Reptisafe. If you use a household water softener it will add a bit of salt. How much will depend on the softener settings.

When I had most of my chams I was on a private well...the water was extremely hard (high in calcium, iron, tannins, or sulfur). To protect my misting system and foggers I chose to install an RO filter and used that "tap water" for my chams. Somewhere else I might not.
 
The devil is in the details. Depends on the tap water! If you don't know what treatment chemicals happen to be in your municipal household water get it analyzed so you do know. If the water utility treats with chlorine that's pretty easy to get rid of. Let the water age in an open bucket overnight before using it. If they add chloramines, add fluoride or other substances you might need a true chemical treatment such as Reptisafe. If you use a household water softener it will add a bit of salt. How much will depend on the softener settings.

When I had most of my chams I was on a private well...the water was extremely hard (high in calcium, iron, tannins, or sulfur). To protect my misting system and foggers I chose to install an RO filter and used that "tap water" for my chams. Somewhere else I might not.
Good to know, thanks
 
So I had a thought, most of us know about reptisafe for your water. But what would be a serious effect from not using it? Just curious because out of all the questions we ask people like "what uvb are you using?" Or "how often do you mist?", the question "do you have safe water" is not one of them. So how do we know if water is causing an issue? Or is reptisafe just a way to get your money?
I have never used anything but tap water.
 
Hi

Long time no post (I'll go over the details in another post) but I use Deionised Water for my green buddies. Big 25ltr "bottles" tied into my mister system. I have never managed to get Distilled Water here in the UK unless it has been in bulk (500ltrs +) and my housing floor wouldn't take the weight of such a huge container and the missus would freak. I hope I have been giving my Chams good water? I was always under the impression that UK tap water with all it's add on.s such as fluoride and so forth was somewhat poisonous to Chameleons and so used to get loads of Reptisafe until I hit on the deionised water but apparently it's OK - so hopefully someone can let me know what the score is regarding water as I am confused.com nowadays.
 
I live in FL, and have a well with hard water. I would go to the local supermarket and buy the purified water from the water machines just inside the door, and use a large 6 gallon carboy to tote it home. If I used my well water, which was fine for the chameleons, it would plug up the mister heads continuously. Not harmful, just a pain to clean them. Our well equipment just needed to be replaced, so we switched to a whole house R/O filter, partly for the chams (best husband ever!), as well as the hard water would also destroy faucets so we'd have to replace them as well. This just got installed this week, and I still have the grocery store filtered water left so I haven't started using the R/O from the house yet, but I'm excited to not have to lug 80 pounds of water from the store to my house! ;)
 
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