"City tap water often contains chlorine and fluoride that can be harmful to your snake. It is recommended that you at least dechlorinate tap water or bottled water. Do not use distilled water. Distilled water lacks valuable minerals essential for proper nutrition in your pet. Water softeners add too much sodium to the water"

Does tap water really effect snakes?

Most studies show it can,,,in the long run. I use Reptisafe which added to the water removes most of the junk that municipalities add to tap water.

__________________
Ken
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem." -- Ronald Reagan

I agree, either let your water sit out over night to dechlorinate itself or use an agent to remove it, I run my water through a filter and let it sit out.

__________________
Answers are great. But I prefer questions!

Visit me at www.jaysreptiles.com

That old method is actually insufficient...the letting it sit for a few hours that is, not the filter part. Though this does evaporate the chlorine, it can't remove chloramines or metals.

I use Reptisafe as well. It's a water conditioner that removes chlorine, chloramines, detoxifies heavy metals, and adds electrolytes. It's made by Zoo Med. You could also technically rely on bottled water, but that would be rather expensive. A great method that can benefit you as well as your reptiles is to just buy a water filter like Brita, PUR, Culligan, or some other brand. Tap water is unsuitable for pretty much any small animal, and in a sense a large one too. Who wants to be drinking all those added chemicals?

__________________
+5 bonus points to whoever finds me a job!

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

Bottled water is about 50 cents a gallon. Unless you're filling an aquarium, that's not very expensive.

lol, nevermind then I guess when I think bottled water I think Aquafina and the stuff that comes in vending machines. I've never really looked for water in a store before, but then again I don't really drink the stuff much. Blech, it's too plain

__________________
+5 bonus points to whoever finds me a job!

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

I have easy access to reverse osmosis water (I have a RO reactor, that I use for my reef tanks). It´s supposed to purify 99,x% of the water heavy metals and other stuff. In reef tanks you used not only to dechlorinate (you wouldn´t need RO for that) but mainly to remove phosphates and silicates from the water to prevent algae blooms.

Do you think I should use this one also for the snake, or there no point on having it so purified ?

The truth is, RO water tastes like...nothing. Maybe its too clean and without some elements that may also be necessary for the animals

It's been a while since high school biology, but is reverse osmosis anything like distilling? I recall distilling having something to do with osmosis.

__________________
+5 bonus points to whoever finds me a job!

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

It would be difficult for me to explain in English, so here´s a link: Reverse Osmosis

Sounds similar to distilling, but not the same thing. The outcome seems similar, but the method is different. The thing that makes distilled water unsuitable for amphibians is that it's purity means it lacks important minerals and it invokes osmosis between the frog's permeable skin and the pure water outside it, thus depleting the frog of even more nutrients. I'm not sure if the same thing would happen with water purified through reverse osmosis though.

__________________
+5 bonus points to whoever finds me a job!

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield