Do you give your snakes tap water?

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Originally Posted by Cheesenugget

All my pets drink tap water. Think about it this way: water in the wild is not clean. There are parasites, bacteria, dead animals and feces in standing water or ponds which they would normally come across for a drink. If we can drink our tap water for decades without health issues, I think our snakes will be fine.

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I drink bottle water. LOL

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Originally Posted by Cheesenugget

All my pets drink tap water. Think about it this way: water in the wild is not clean. There are parasites, bacteria, dead animals and feces in standing water or ponds which they would normally come across for a drink. If we can drink our tap water for decades without health issues, I think our snakes will be fine.

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Animals in the wild don't live as long as we want our pets to either. When they don't feel well, they slow down & predators put them out of their misery. But I do think
that in the wild, many build up a little more tolerance to all the usual contamination...and who knows, maybe the sunshine (or other factors?) also does more for them
than we currently understand, in terms of health & resistance. Few things in nature can make killer chemicals like we can...chlorine is one of them...so if it was very
noticeable in my tap I'd avoid giving it to my snakes too. Happily that's not been the case.

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Originally Posted by craigafrechette

That's why I always say there's exceptions to every rule. If I could smell chlorine in my water none of my pets would drink it, and neither would I.

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Yeah, I personally won't touch the stuff unless it's sat over night, and even then the mineral content is so darn high i try to stick with bottled water, last thing i need are kidney stones. Lol

Is distilled water safe to use when misting? A lot of systems and humidifiers recommend it, but I think about snakes like GTPs that might prefer to drink droplets of sprayed distilled water over water from a bowl...How do people handle this?

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Originally Posted by Tila

Is distilled water safe to use when misting? A lot of systems and humidifiers recommend it, but I think about snakes like GTPs that might prefer to drink droplets of sprayed distilled water over water from a bowl...How do people handle this?

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i do not use distilled water when misting my crested gecko for the same reason: they drink the droplets. yeah it's harder to clean but, eh.

The main issue with distilled is that because it lacks minerals of any kind, it can throw off an animals internal electrolyte balance. I would think that things like geckos that have vitamins in their food would be less likely to have this happen though.

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Originally Posted by Tila

Is distilled water safe to use when misting? A lot of systems and humidifiers recommend it, but I think about snakes like GTPs that might prefer to drink droplets of sprayed distilled water over water from a bowl...How do people handle this?

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You don't want your snakes drinking ONLY distilled water, but it's better for misting because it doesn't leave hard water stains everywhere. I don't think you need to
worry about a snake that drinks SOME distilled water, as long as that's not ALL they drink? That's a great question...for snakes that mostly drink droplets, if that was
my situation I'd probably alternate them. I think you should start a specific thread for this...I don't keep any snakes this applies to & like you, I wonder what other
keepers (of GTPs etc) are doing? They might not find your question so easily buried in this thread?

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Originally Posted by Tila

Is distilled water safe to use when misting? A lot of systems and humidifiers recommend it, but I think about snakes like GTPs that might prefer to drink droplets of sprayed distilled water over water from a bowl...How do people handle this?

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

You don't want your snakes drinking ONLY distilled water, but it's better for misting because it doesn't leave hard water stains everywhere. I don't think you need to worry about a snake that drinks SOME distilled water, as long as that's not ALL they drink? That's a great question...for snakes that mostly drink droplets, if that was my situation I'd probably alternate them. I think you should start a specific thread for this...I don't keep any snakes this applies to & like you, I wonder what other keepers (of GTPs etc) are doing? They might not find your question so easily buried in this thread?

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with snakes like GTP, you can wet their food to ensure they're getting good hydration with every meal. snakes also absorb water through their skin; i don't think crested geckos absorb water through their skin.

this is a really good questions definitely deserving of its own thread, OP.

EDIT: i wonder what @Sauzo thinks :)

Thanks for the consideration and replies, that's a good idea to pose this again later as I'm entertaining the idea of an arboreal, most likely a GTP in the future.

The water where I live is kinda on and off. Somedays it's fine and some days I don't even like to drink it because it tastes like dirt. I use reptisafe just to be safe. Cheap and lasts a long time, works for me :gj: