Do not use distilled water?

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
tcraighenry

tcraighenry

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 1, 2011
Messages
728
Location
Portland, OR
We've been giving Vincenza bottled water (until we can get a good water purifier, need to stop buying treats and buy useful stuff! :))

I was under the impression this was ok, until I came across this:

http://www.exoticnutrition.com/chinchilladiet.html
Chinchillas need fresh water daily. DO NOT USE distilled water on your animals. The nutrients which have been removed are important in maintaining a healthy animal.
Click to expand...

What nutrients could they possibly be talking about? Water is water right? Unless it's from a tap and could have all sorts of weirdness like fluoride in it.

Are they full of it? Or should we rush this water pitcher process?
 
Distilled water is water that has been boiled, evaporated and the vapor is condensed back into water. Distilled water is free of minerals and frankly tastes nasty to me and I would imagine it would to chins but that is not the only reason I would not give it. This type of water contains more hydrogen and is concidered an acid since the ph is less than 7, anytime a chin consumes an acid the body pulls minerals from the teeth and bones to produce bicarbonate to neutralize the acid. Chins do not need any more issues with teeth or calcium deficiancy. No where in the world is there distilled water naturally, animals were not ever meant to drink dead water.
 
As Sandi said, reverse osmosis water is perfectly fine to give to chins. If you decide to go this route, my advice would be to get an under the sink reverse osmosis watering system at Lowe's or Home Depot.
My hubby got me one for under 200.00 and I only have to replace the filters every 6 months, versus the every 2 weeks I was having to do with the Brita pitcher and the Pur filters.
If you don't want to go this route, make sure your faucet filter or pitcher filter is the 3 stage filter system, which also filters out other things such as Giardia and other water borne microbes that can be harmful to our furry friends.
 
Reverse osmosis is great for chins. :) I think they enjoy the taste of it more than tap water, which can taste like a myriad of different things, and more than distilled. I fill up the waterbottles at the RO water station in town and it's worked out well. The thing I like the most about using the RO water instead of tap water is that I get no mineral scale on the nozzles of the waterbottles.

It costs me $0.20 a gallon. I'd have the under the sink system here at home but I'd have to maintain the system filters and we just don't have the water to run one out here at the house. R/O systems can have quite a bit of waste water. Water is precious in the desert especially when you aren't hooked up to a municipal water system!
 
I have a question about water as well - I get the gallon jugs at target and they say "purified water" that's ok right if in little letters underneath it says "purified by reverse osmosis"?

I read somewhere that it was ok so I gave it to them and then FREAKED when I read that it shouldn't be given. I get a little too worried over things.
 
I would recommend using a brita filter pitcher from walmart. It works great for me and is relatively inexpensive
 
I just purchased a jug of distilled water today under the impression that it was okay for chins. But now I'm just wondering if I should return it. I haven't given her any yet. I'm assuming I shouldn't give her any considering it could take from her teeth/bones and all. Am I right or is it okay?
 
I have a question too. This water doesn't say distilled, filtered or purified. It just says "Bottled at the source" I got a gallon at the dollar store. Is this safe to use?
 

Attachments

  • water.jpg
    water.jpg
    14.7 KB · Views: 8
Marissa, that is probably from a spring, into which all sorts of contaminants fall. I would be worried about Giardiasis the most from spring water.
 
Don't use the crystal geyser!!! I did and my chins got giardia. Water like Aquafina and Dasani are safe and reverse-osmosis.

I am not sure if distilled is bad or good. I think it's just ok. It won't give your chins giardia, but it won't give them the other nutrients they need from water.
 
DMB Forty41One said:
I would recommend using a brita filter pitcher from walmart. It works great for me and is relatively inexpensive
Click to expand...

from my research, only one of the newer Brita filters works to filter out giardia. all of the other/older styles do not, and are not safe to be used for chin's drinking water.
 
According to this website for the CRYSTAL GEYSER® ALPINE SPRING WATER® they use a 0.1 micron filter at all of their locations? isn't 0.1 microns small enough to weed out giardia??

just my thoughts...

Q: Does CRYSTAL GEYSER® ALPINE SPRING WATER® use a .1 Micron filter? What does this mean?
A: We utilize Absolute Filtration, a filtration method that the bottled water industry recognizes as the “gold standard” for filtering an indicator of water purity. An Absolute-rated filter removes 100% of all particles of a given size. Filters are usually rated in microns, according to the size of particles that a filter can remove. A “micron” is one one-thousandth (1/1000) of a millimeter. Therefore, a.1 micron Absolute filter will remove 100% of all particles that are .1 micron (or larger) in size.
Therefore, by using a .1 micron filter at each of our plants, we are able to remove 100% of the natural occurring particles in our spring water that are one one-thousandth (1/1000) of a millimeter or larger. This absolute filtration method, coupled with our use of various other filters and ozonation during the bottling process, ensures that our CRYSTAL GEYSER® ALPINE SPRING WATER® contains pure and high quality spring water, without needing to strip away desirable natural minerals and taste through distillation or purification.

http://www.crystalgeyserasw.com/faqs.html
 
They seam to spout a lot about 0.1 microns but don't even give examples of what that might include. Most gallons of water are about the same price so i would just stick with reverse osmosis. Spring waters are basically tap water btw.

Chin_Pig said:
According to this website for the CRYSTAL GEYSER® ALPINE SPRING WATER® they use a 0.1 micron filter at all of their locations? isn't 0.1 microns small enough to weed out giardia??

just my thoughts...

Q: Does CRYSTAL GEYSER® ALPINE SPRING WATER® use a .1 Micron filter? What does this mean?
A: We utilize Absolute Filtration, a filtration method that the bottled water industry recognizes as the “gold standard” for filtering an indicator of water purity. An Absolute-rated filter removes 100% of all particles of a given size. Filters are usually rated in microns, according to the size of particles that a filter can remove. A “micron” is one one-thousandth (1/1000) of a millimeter. Therefore, a.1 micron Absolute filter will remove 100% of all particles that are .1 micron (or larger) in size.
Therefore, by using a .1 micron filter at each of our plants, we are able to remove 100% of the natural occurring particles in our spring water that are one one-thousandth (1/1000) of a millimeter or larger. This absolute filtration method, coupled with our use of various other filters and ozonation during the bottling process, ensures that our CRYSTAL GEYSER® ALPINE SPRING WATER® contains pure and high quality spring water, without needing to strip away desirable natural minerals and taste through distillation or purification.

http://www.crystalgeyserasw.com/faqs.html
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top