Bleach in Drinking Water- Be Careful

[wilomn]

In the last three weeks or so, which have been some of the hottest of the year, I lost a goodly number of pregnant females and had quite a few babies just disappear. I attributed to the heat and just rotten luck.

All the little guys who were not in racks, where doing just fine. Not a single death in there. Again, confirms my first suspicion that heat is the culprit. There is not a sneeze, a snotty nose, an unclean coat, on any rat in that room.

I just find bodies in he morning, limp usually.

So I have some VERY fat False Water Cobras; but I digress.....

I also, in my efforts to have the damnfinest damnfine rats out there, started putting bleach in the 5 gal. water reservoirs that all the racks have. I figured a capful in 5 gallons, that should kill any algae in the tubing and just about any bacteria that might be in the water. Overkill.

I haven't brought in an outside rat in at least 4 years. These guys are solid, health wise.

I was also putting a lid on the water buckets to keep the ever present dust out of the water. I use pine pellets and they are dusty. The lid was not tight, but covered the bucket.

Therein lies my problem. Chlorine gas can dissipate quickly given exposure to open air. I knew this. I forgot I knew this, but I did. What I did not know was that it would stay in the water in a much higher concentration than I thought. A concentration that was sufficient to kill a bunch of my breeders.

If the extreme heat didn't kill them. The room is air conditioned but does get into the upper 80s on occasion.

I found out about the non-evaporation of chlorine when I moved the lid of one of the water buckets, 5 days after filling it with water and adding a capful of bleach, and smelled a STRONG aroma of chlorine.

BING BING BING went the bell, flashing lights flared and fire works exploded, all to celebrate the stupidity of me.

Ahhh well.

So, a word of caution to those of you who use or wish to use bleach in the drinking water of your rodents, be careful not to overdose.

On a side note, either I am hallucinating on a much more regular basis than even I suspected, or a BUNCH of pinks and pups disappeared this week. I wonder if the heat and/or bleach made the adults eat the babies.

[dr del]

Hi,

Did they go through the amount of the water containing bleach that you would have expected?

Just wondering if they ate the pinkies for water content because they were trying to avoid the water containing bleach.


dr del

[Oxylepy]

There has to be a better way of discouraging the growth of algae without adding chlorine bleach to the water. Perhaps non-chlorine bleach or a slight change in pH (a weak acid perhaps).

I'd avoid adding things that humans would not wish to ingest to the rat's resources :/

[suzuki4life]

I've always added a small amount of salt....never an issue.

How often do you purge your system and add all fresh water?

[wilomn]

Not yet, except for the few that got hoses chewed.

Each rack goes through about half a bucket a week, so I fill when I clean. Never had any problems, was just being over cautious.

It's been a couple of weeks now and no problems. I suspect that had the buckets been uncovered there would not have been a concentration which what I suspect happened.

Anyway, everyone is fat and happy now.