Snakes make great pets because as long as you know how to take care of them properly, they can thrive even with minimal effort on your part. And like all animals, one thing they need the most is safe drinking water. However, not all water is good enough to drink when it comes to snakes.

Corn snakes can drink tap water as long as it does not contain chlorine. Chlorine is extremely toxic to snakes. It can irritate their skin and even cause death when ingested regularly or in large amounts. As a rule of thumb, if the tap water is safe for you, your snake can also drink it.

Ensuring your snake has safe drinking water is essential to keeping it healthy. Here’s a quick guide on how to do that.

Will Tap Water Make My Corn Snake Sick?

Tap water can make your corn snake sick if it contains chlorine, fluoride, or chloramines. Companies typically add these chemicals to tap water to make it safe for human consumption. However, even tiny amounts of these chemicals are harmful to snakes and can cause irritated skin and even death.

If you have been drinking from your tap, though, and you’ve proven that it’s safe for you, chances are it’s safe for your snake. However, since humans can tolerate traces of chlorine, such as the amount used to treat water, the water may still be able to harm your snake. So if you want to ensure tap water is safe, dechlorinate it before giving it to your pet.

You can also check your location’s water treatment standards to determine how your water is treated and whether any chlorine is used.

Types of Water That’s Safe for Corn Snakes

It can be a hassle not to be able to use tap water for your snake’s drinking water. But as they say, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. You may have to make an effort to give your pet safe water to drink daily, but as long as it keeps your snake healthy, it’s worth it.

Here are the types of water that your snake can drink:

Bottled Water

Bottled water is free of chlorine and usually contains all the minerals and electrolytes humans and snakes need to keep healthy. So if you don’t want to go through the hassle of dechlorinating water, checking for pH levels, and testing for chemicals, this is the quickest and safest way to go.

However, it’s much more costly in the long run and is not ideal if you keep more than one snake at home. 

Dechlorinated Tap Water

A great long-term option is dechlorinated tap water. It’ll keep you from spending hundreds of dollars on bottled water for your snake to drink. All you need to do to remove the chlorine from the water is boil it for about 20 minutes. This will cause the chlorine to evaporate.

If you’re not sure about the quality of your tap water, make sure to have it checked for other chemicals as well, as boiling it will not get rid of all chemicals used for water treatment, including traces of lead that may have collected in the pipes.

Filtered Tap Water

Another way to dechlorinate and purify tap water is by using a carbon filtration system at home. This system not only gets rid of chlorine but other chemicals as well. It is also very cost-efficient and will benefit your pets and the whole family.

Conclusion

So you can give tap water to your snake, as long as it’s free of harmful chemicals. Distilled water, however, is not an option, even though it doesn’t contain any chloramines, because it lacks all the minerals necessary for your snake’s growth and health.