Is tap water ok?

YesMovement

Arachnopeon
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Hi guys, registered last week and started a thread on basic tarantula care. I live in the South of England and I was wondering, is tap water ok for my Chilean Rose Hair? If not, how should I go about letting her drink?
 

Poec54

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I only use bottled water. I go thru about a case a week. For the average person, a case would last many months, so it's very affordable. Give your spider a waterbowl, 1 to 3 ozs.
 

Mariner1

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I only use bottled water. The city puts fluoride and who knows what else in the water and my well water is extremely hard.
 

awiec

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I boil and de-chlorinate my water but I still got water stains on my enclosures, never seemed to bother the spiders but I switched to bottled so I don't have to look at water stains all day.
 

Misty Day

Arachnobaron
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I just use regular tap water, if it's safe for us to drink, it's safe for them. I don't really mind the water stains as long as they're not too bad.
 

Andy Sherwood

Arachnopeon
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I'm in the UK, I use bottled water.

As Poec54 said, very cheap and you get a lot of it, providing you buy in bulk.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 

z32upgrader

Arachnobaron
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For my spiders, I buy one gallon jugs of distilled water at my local grocery store for $.97 each. It's cheaper than buying 24-packs of bottled water, never leaves water spots, and has much less waste in terms of the amount of plastic that potentially gets thrown in a landfill. One gallon lasts a month or more for the 50 spiders I care for even here in the dry climate of Arizona.
 

Beary Strange

Arachnodemon
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I get Sparklett's delivery and use it for personal drinking, cooking and my spiders. But then, the OC is known for its poor water quality...there's a water store in EVERY plaza so.
 

Poec54

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I just use regular tap water, if it's safe for us to drink, it's safe for them.
Not really. We're hundreds of times larger, and can handle a lot more chemicals than they can.
 

cold blood

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I have used only tap water for 14 years, the only issue is the build-up on the water dish. I will say, that generally I use water from a bucket in the room, as it sits the chlorine will dissipate, although it doesn't help with the fluoride, it hasn't caused issues with the t's.
 

YesMovement

Arachnopeon
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Do they do distilled water at Super Markets (UK)? I'm sorry I'm sounding so stupid I just wanna get everything right!
 

cgrinter

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I feel like there would be evidence to suggest tap water would be bad for T's by now... and it doesn't appear to be out there one way or another. I've only used tap water and never had problems for slings to adults. A lot of people in the US use and drink bottled water, but there is no reason for this let alone using it for tarantulas.

-Edit- I should say usually very little reason, unless a chemical company destroys your groundwater and rivers.
 

SpiderMan1975

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I use reverse osmosis water from my home which is basicly the same as store bought bottled water
 

Poec54

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I feel like there would be evidence to suggest tap water would be bad for T's by now... and it doesn't appear to be out there one way or another. I've only used tap water and never had problems for slings to adults. A lot of people in the US use and drink bottled water, but there is no reason for this let alone using it for tarantulas.
Define 'bad for.' It doesn't have to kill them to be an issue. Have you bred your spiders? Certain added chemicals may effect their reproduction. We really don't know, and bottled water is very cheap.
 

cgrinter

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Define 'bad for.' It doesn't have to kill them to be an issue. Have you bred your spiders? Certain added chemicals may effect their reproduction. We really don't know, and bottled water is very cheap.
Only bread B. smithi. I understand the reasoning for wanting to err on the side of caution, but do breeders have preferences? Has anyone actually looked at this in any semi-scientific way? It sounds like all we have is anecdotal reports that don't really tell us one way or another. If anything I would imagine hard water would be good - the dissolved minerals would probably be more important to a spider than a minute amount of fluoride and probably better than perfectly pure mineral-free water. I've never had problems but that doesn't mean I'm right, but I think spending money on water is one of the stupider things people do (bottled water in general).
 

freedumbdclxvi

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I use tap water. Never had any issue from sling to adult to sac and back again.

---------- Post added 04-14-2014 at 06:07 PM ----------

Not really. We're hundreds of times larger, and can handle a lot more chemicals than they can.
Can you source that? To err on the side of caution is one thing. To state something regarding the molecular biology of an animal whose nutritional and mineral requirements are basically unknown is faulty.
 

cgrinter

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Not really. We're hundreds of times larger, and can handle a lot more chemicals than they can.
That theory only holds true if the spider drinks the same amount of water as we do. They are much smaller, but they also drink a lot less water.
 

Poec54

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Only bread B. smithi. I understand the reasoning for wanting to err on the side of caution, but do breeders have preferences? Has anyone actually looked at this in any semi-scientific way? It sounds like all we have is anecdotal reports that don't really tell us one way or another. If anything I would imagine hard water would be good - the dissolved minerals would probably be more important to a spider than a minute amount of fluoride and probably better than perfectly pure mineral-free water. I've never had problems but that doesn't mean I'm right, but I think spending money on water is one of the stupider things people do (bottled water in general).
Tap water quality and chemical additives vary from one area to the next, so that prevents any kind of study on it's effects on tarantulas. The inconsistency and questionable quality is what created the demand for bottled water in the first place. Otherwise it wouldn't exist. You can take a stand on not spending the dollar a month it would cost you for bottled water, but what are you accomplishing?
 

nicodimus22

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if it's safe for us to drink, it's safe for them.
Going by that logic, if chocolate is safe for us to eat, it's safe for dogs, right? Nope. It's safe for us, but can be deadly for them, and we're a lot more similar biologically to dogs than we are to spiders.

There are chemicals that an exterminator uses in our home that are safe for us, and even safe for our dogs and cats, that completely wipe out invertebrates.

I put chemicals in the aquariums at work that are safe for fish, but kill invertebrates (ghost shrimp) if we don't take them out first.

Different animals react differently to the same chemical.
 
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