What is the difference between distilled water bought from a grocery store in a plastic sealed container, water from one of those water dispensers at grocery stores where you bring your own container, purified water, and Brita-filtered Oakland tap water?
Melissa the Hungry, a venus fly trap, requires only distilled (never tap) water, because she does not want nutrients of any kind.
My new betta fish requires … uh … conditioned … filtered … water … or something. I am looking it up before I change his water. Poor fishy.
My CPAP machine instructions say it requires distilled water in its humidifier chamber but I cheat and put regular water in there straight from the bathroom sink tap. Maybe that is why so much white residue collects at the bottom of the humidifier chamber. o_O
They say never use tap water to neti pot unless you’ve boiled it for ten minutes first, because of brain-eating bacteria. I have used hot tap water and blasted it through my nose. That is probably not good and I should probably stop.
I guess I’m asking… would a water filter for tap water help for the applications of venus fly trap, fish, or human CPAP machine? Or am I better off purchasing distilled water?
If so, is it possible to procure it in bulk–that is, is the bulk water distilled, or just filtered? (or are they the same thing)
Purified water is filtered water that is really really really filtered.
In some cases, highly filtered water may be called purified water, which is legally required to contain less than 10 parts per million of contaminants. While not all filtered water is purified water, all purified water has been filtered.
Distilled water is completely different. It is boiled and then only the steam is collected and that is the distilled water. This means when I boil unfiltered tap water at home, even for ten minutes, the water left in the pot is NOT “distilled water.” It is just really hot water with probably most things killed but it was not just the steam so probably all the metals and whatever are still inside.
I’m remembering now that the previous caretakers of Melissa the Hungry told me specifically that I needed to get distilled water from a store for her, and filtered water wouldn’t work because it still has too much stuff. They gave me a jug of distilled water. I used up my old jug for my sleep apnea machine first and now I’m on her jug. I remember promising them I’d use my sleep apnea machine too and then telling them about how much trouble I have using it.
Maybe taking care of a venus fly trap will make me go buy distilled water regularly and then put it in my cpap.
The main thing is dont drink distilled water. It strips you of electrolytes. It’s good for machines that vaporize water so it won’t leave mineral buildup on cpap and humidifiers. There is even a further grade for lab work called deionized water you should also not drink but it’s used when you only want chemical water for a reaction and not the other stuff in tap water, but I’m in California so tap water is safer than bottled water here, no plastic chemicals leeching out and no waste.
We are using declorinated tap water over here for ours successfully. However we have only owned a btea fish for a few months. ( Currently cleaning his mini tank once a week ). Ours came with no such instructions.
Ours also came with no instructions, though it tends to whine and smell if we don’t shower it daily. Emotional support is touch and go. We mostly turn it off and back on again.