RCReptiles.com

[ryancbj22]

What temparature of water does everyone use after changing the water in you enclosure's. Do you use room temp or cold or warm. There is a thread in the Other Reptile's section that may explain my reasoning behind asking this question.....

[deborahbroadus]

Do you mean drinking water? I just just tap water and I run it cold if I am out of the water that I leave standing to remove chlorine.

[ryancbj22]

Yeah the drinking water. After disenfecting the water dish I run the water as cold as it will go and fill it up.

[deborahbroadus]

[ryancbj22]

Yeah the more I think about it the more I think that when she got into her water bowl it just shocked her. I never put two and two together to think it would be a problem having cold water. Usually when I return her to her enclosure after about 5minutes she goes to the warm hide to digest. This time she just happened to go for the water. I suppose it could have been the mouse there's not much I can do to figure out whether it was or not. It just makes me nervous cause i've never had a problem, but I guess i'll just have to wait a week and see what happens.

[todd13]

ya i agree with Deb

[hhmoore]

Don't go real cold with the water.
I do just about everything by feel (I've been doing this long enough that I am pretty consistent, too ), so I don't measure a lot of the random stuff - I'd guess that I go right around 70-75 with drinking water. You've got me curious though, so I'll fill a few bowls and hit them with the temp gun after I post.

The reason I say not to go real cold is that the average tap will run water down into the low 50s (probably a bit warmer in desert areas) - again, that is a guesstimate, but I'll check that in a bit, as well. That can be quite a shock to the system if they go over and drink right away. In example - one hot summer day, a number of years ago, a good friend's son gave his corn snake a nice cold drink of water (out of the tap, not the refrigerator). The snake immediately began drinking, and a short time later was writhing around, dying. A common event? Probably not...but it happened once, and that is enough for me to make the decision not to have it happen to me.

[hhmoore]

Since I usually draw drinking water after running hot, I started out that way then adjusted the temp down. Once it felt right, I filled 5 deli cups, and checked the temp with a Raytek MT4 - 71 degrees.
Then, I ran it full cold til it felt stable, and refilled those same deli cups - 50 degrees.

this has been another episode of Fun With Temp Guns...if you don't have at least one, you don't know what you're missing - literally.

[ryancbj22]

That is very interesting thank's for doing the reasearch. I honestly think that is exactly what happened to be honest there's really no other logical reason unless there was something wrong with the mouse as Deb said. I did everything the exact same way as always with the exception of letting the mouse defrost a little longer than usual just because it was a little larger. See usually after feeding all of my snakes go straight to there hide's on the warm side and don't come out for about two day's. Therefore the water has time to warm up to room temps before they ever attempt to drink from it. This one time on that rare occasion she went right to the water not really for a drink but it was just in the way of where she was heading lol. I really think that sudden soak in the cold water just jolted her enough to cause that reaction. Thanks again HHMOORE for your reasearch and input....... I really hope it was the water and not something more serious that's going on.....