What kind of water should I use? Distilled is acidic...

[pascalhost]

Hi guys,

I've been taking care of some Cornu aspersum for a bit over a year now and I recently realized that the periostracum of their shells, the thin outer layer of mostly proteins, has been peeling off, so now a bunch of them look like they have bleached white shells showing through. It looks a lot like the snails in Liguus 's old post:
petsnails.proboards.com/thread/14484/shells-peeling-off

Well I have a variety of wild-caught snails and some that I've bred so I realized that it must be due to something in their environment that is acidic, and after ordering some stuff to test pH I learned that the distilled water that I've been spraying on them and all over their environment all the time is acidic. Thinking I might have gotten bad distilled water, I googled this and learned that apparently distilled water just IS acidic because it forms carbonic acid when in contact with the CO2 in air:
sciencing.com/ph-distilled-water-4623914.html

So basically folks my question to you is: what should I do for water for my snails?

I was thinking the options are:
(a) add something to distilled water to raise its pH
(b) add something to tap water to remove its nasties
(c) get a water filter to remove the nasties from tap water
(d) buy bottled spring water or something like that
(e) something else that I'm not thinking of?

For (a) I was looking at something like API's pH UP which contains sodium carbonate, but I'm not sure if sodium carbonate is safe for snails:
www.apifishcare.com/product.php?p=downloads&id=645
www.apifishcare.com/pdf/31_pH_Up_4827-67_Documents_chemwatch_2019_April_12_12-33-10-111_PM.pdf

(I also looked at some buffering products that bring the pH to a set level, but decided that might be too dangerous because they contain phosphates and if there are traces of iron in their environment that could combine into iron phosphate which would be really bad. But I don't know much of chemistry or anything.)



For (b) I was considering somthing like this which removes chlorine, chloramine, and heavy metals, and it contains sodium thiosulfate and EDTA tetrasodium salt:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OVD8IU/

Again though I'm not sure if sodium thiosulfate and EDTA tetrasodium salt are safe for snails.



For (c), well, getting a good water filter that removes various things from tap water looks expensive, but also, in general for (b) or (c), what are all the things in tap water that are bad for snails that I should be concerned about?

I figured chlorine and chloramine, but is fluoride also bad for snails? Is that it? Apparently there can be pesticides in water?

For example from what I've read, water filtration systems can remove about 90% of fluoride, so if fluoride is bad for snails then that probably wouldn't be enough.



Sorry I may be overthinking this but at this point I just don't know what to do. I think option (d) might just be the easiest, assuming there isn't a whole other set of issues with spring water...

Oh and fyi my snails have sphagnum moss and coir for substrate, but mostly sphagnum moss because they're weird and like that more.

[littlegoldsnail]

Api PH up is safe for snails. So is most water conditioners (actually like all water conditioners sold in the fish section). What is the PH of the water you’re spraying them with?

[morningcoffee]

I use filtered tap water from a Brita filter jug.

[Liguus]

I have also started to use tap water just sent through a Brita jug.

Before I was using distilled water, but as you mention it can pose problems for the shell if it turns acidic. My original line of thinking was that rain water is essentially distilled water, so it should be fine, but not everything in nature is "perfect" or how we would want it to be and plenty of snails get old weathered shells.

Also if you did want to keep using the same water you could just simply buffer it by adding some calcium powder, perhaps even oyster grit. The ratios/time to get it back to neutral will vary, so if you chose to do this I would recommend getting a meter that can read the pH of the water.

[pascalhost]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

It's good to know that I can use a pH booster/water conditioner. The water I've been spraying has a pH between 5 and 6; I'll be getting a pH meter to be more precise in my measurements.
(Interestingly, the pH was 6.6 if I measured a sample taken straight out of the distilled water jug, but using a spray bottle aerates the water as it is sprayed out so then the pH dropped below 6.)

My concern with Brita filters was that they don't remove fluoride, and also don't claim to remove chloramine though I found people explaining that they can remove chloramine but it would just require longer contact time with the filter/multiple passes. Of course there's variation in tap water, but it's a good data point if your guys' snails are doing fine with brita filters. I might switch to that.
www.brita.com/why-brita/what-we-filter/
www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/fyi-brita-filters-and-san-diego-tap-water-no-chloramine-removal.324096/

I do have some crushed oyster shell that my snails love, but I was hesitant to add that to the distilled water because I thought that the snails wouldn't be able to regulate their intake of calcium then. But I may be wrong about that concern.

[littlegoldsnail]

Aquarium water conditioners remove chlorine, chloramines, detoxify heavy medals, and sometimes detoxify ammonia and nitrite, depending on type of conditioner. I use API Stress Coat for my aquarium (with aquatic snails in it), it detoxifies heavy metals, removes chorine and chloramine, and is stress relieving (it’s made from aloe Vera). Seachem Prime water conditioner also binds ammonia and nitrite making it non toxic for 48 hours.

[Liguus]

Feb 21, 2020 8:10:17 GMT pascalhost said:

I do have some crushed oyster shell that my snails love, but I was hesitant to add that to the distilled water because I thought that the snails wouldn't be able to regulate their intake of calcium then. But I may be wrong about that concern.

The quantity it would take to neutralize the water shouldn't be too high, and a trace amount of calcium in the water shouldn't cause any issues with them taking in too much calcium. 


I like littlegoldsnail's comment though as well. The water conditioner should make the water safe and it's used on many aquariums that include snails. 

[littlegoldsnail]

Yeah, if you check the bottle, it should say safe for invertebrates. If it says that, you are good to go. API stress coat (for example) says fish and invert safe on the front, so that would mean it’s fine to use with snails and shrimp and stuff.

[pascalhost]

Thanks for the clarification about the concentration of calcium Liguus; good to know that's an option.

I checked the small bottles of API water conditioner and pH UP that I picked up and they only mention safe for fish and plants:
imgur.com/a/xzeubqn

I did however find on Amazon reviews that people said they're safe for their aquatic snails, though I wouldn't have assumed that safe for aquatic snails = safe for land snails but that's why I'm not a biologist. Thanks for your insight!

[pascalhost]

Oh fyi I just looked up API Stress Coat to see if I can at least compare ingredients (which I can't because they're proprietary) but I noticed that it also doesn't mention invertebrates, so they must have changed the label or formulation since you got it littlegoldsnail.

www.apifishcare.com/product/stress-coat

[littlegoldsnail]

Hmm... I use it every week in my tank and have been for over a year and my snails are happy as can be. I know dozens and dozens of people on Fishlore aquarium forum who have aquatic snails and use stress coat as their primary conditioner. I don’t see how it wouldn’t be safe. I think as long as it has the fish safe certification and there isn’t any copper in it you are fine (snails are super sensitive to copper).