HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I was wondering how many other people use bottled water and then dechlorinate it ore just tap. I use Bottled because its just a double safety thing even my dechlorinate says it filters tap but I just play it safe and get 2 gallons of bottled water one for salt one for fresh. Do you guys use tap ore bottled and if both do you notice a difference? thanks

I use spring water, with a little dechlor (1/2 of what it says) only to be safe. Most bottled water (like aquafina) is basically the same as tap, so you are wasting your money

Well alright thanks its onley buck though so $2 is not that much.

I use tap water that I dechlorinate myself

Angela

I've researched this before and this is what I found. There's tap water, filtered water, and natural spring water.

Laws require that these different water sources be spelled out on the packaging. If someone buys something called "Pure water" or some other misleading brand name, if it's filtered water it needs to state it on the lable, it will say something along the lines of,"From a municipal source" or "Processed by Ossmosis", something like that. This is filtered water.

If it says Natural Sring water, and you don't see the above disclaimer, it is not filtered water and it is litterally taken from some natural water source, it will often even state "From Colorado Springs" or somehow even tell you what natural source it comes from.

If it's Purified water, there can still be reminates of chlorine in it. You don't know how they well they filter the water when they process it. It's also likely to have been stripped of vital natraul nutrients. This is why it's better to use either tap water and delcorinate it, or natural spring water, being very careful to read the label and know what you're buying. This way you still get the good stuff in the water.

i used dechlorinated tap water, just because it's cheaper

Quistgard wrote:I use spring water, with a little dechlor (1/2 of what it says) only to be safe. Most bottled water (like aquafina) is basically the same as tap, so you are wasting your money

Aquafina is purified by reverse osmosis. This process removes practically everything, so it ends up being just as safe as distilled water. Bottled water that's just 'purified' could have anything in it.
Crab-safe water can be either distilled, processed by reverse osmosis, natural spring water, or dechlorinated.

What is the distilled water you buy from the store? (That's what I use)

Distilled water is NOT drinking water, at least for humans.

Distilled water has NO ions/minirals/salts in it, which is actually bad - it's very hypotonic to humans and crabs. Same reason why it's bad to drink sea water (for humans), except it's the opposite extreme - hypertonic.

We're meant to drink something in-between. Even purified drinking water isn't as hypotonic as distilled water. Oddly, drinking physiological saline (150 mM salt / 0.85% weight/volume) isn't something usually done, even though it's perfectly isotonic for humans.

If you give distilled water to your crabs, make sure you also provide salt water so they can even themselves out.


On the other hand, distilled water is PERFECT for repleneshing evaporated water, as when water evaporates, the left over gets more concentrated (salts dont' evaporate), and distilled water would dilute it back to the original strength. This doesn't take into account any water drank or spilled.


Edit: put the incorrect w/v concentration of physiological saline, it's 0.85%, not 8.5% - 10 fold difference

bottled spring water isn't that expensive. I get a gallon jug of it at Wal-Mart for $.57 and it lasts me forever. I don't use the dechlorinator at all. I haven't had a problem with my crabbies yet.

Gorthaur wrote: Aquafina is purified by reverse osmosis. This process removes practically everything, so it ends up being just as safe as distilled water. Bottled water that's just 'purified' could have anything in it.
Crab-safe water can be either distilled, processed by reverse osmosis, natural spring water, or dechlorinated.

Haha, My uncle is a civil engineer, and he took me on a tour of a water treatment plant he designed, and he told me that Aquafina actually buys water from there, and straight bottles it, since the tap water you have has already gone through reverse osmosis as part of national law

I would also agree that distilled water is not a good alternative. From posts I have read on here and advice from others it is said that crabbies need the nutrients and minerals that is in regular water. Distilling removes everything and just leaves you with a pretty pointless dish of water.

Quistgard wrote: Haha, My uncle is a civil engineer, and he took me on a tour of a water treatment plant he designed, and he told me that Aquafina actually buys water from there, and straight bottles it, since the tap water you have has already gone through reverse osmosis as part of national law

From Wikipedia:

Aquafina is a non-carbonated bottled water produced by PepsiCo. It was first distributed in Wichita, Kansas in 1994, was distributed across the United States by 1997, and as of 2003, had become the United States' top-selling bottled water brand in measured retail channels. The water is mainly driven from municipal tap water that goes through an extensive purification process that includes charcoal filtration, reverse osmosis and ozonation.

I'd be disappointed if they were allowed to bottle straight tap water and still claim how well it's filtered. I am aware that some companies do bottle straight tap water.

So does this mean the trace minerals (including metals!) in spring water (aka mineral water) are OK for crabs to consume? The actual contents of the bottle water is concerning to me.

LilCrabs wrote:So does this mean the trace minerals (including metals!) in spring water (aka mineral water) are OK for crabs to consume? The actual contents of the bottle water is concerning to me.

All life that we know of requires trace amounts of metals (and minerals). For example, iron is an essential component of hemoglobin (don't think crabs use hemoglobin for O2 transport - probably copper based hemocyannin), zinc is required for almost all DNA binding proteins (so called "zinc-finger proteins") - required for cellular function, various ions for control of osmosis, potasium (another metal) is required for potasium pumps - needed ATP synthesis..etc.

So I doubt the trace elements in spring water could be too bad...but I supose it depends on the spring. Since people here seem to use it without a problem, I wouldn't worry. I'd be more worried about giving these guys extremely hypotonic water (distilled), which isn't ever found in nature, and probably isn't good for their salt regulation.