Can Bearded Dragons Drink Tap Water?

Of course, in the wild, bearded dragons wouldn’t drink tap water, so can bearded dragons drink tap water in captivity? In general, yes bearded dragons can drink tap water without issue. But that can depend a little bit on the quality of your tap water.

If you wouldn’t drink the tap water from your town, it’s probably best avoided for your bearded dragon too. Even if you would drink the tap water from your town, there are some things to consider when wondering whether to let them drink the tap water.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that bearded dragons almost always won’t drink static water from a bowl anyway and in general, so long as you’re providing vegetables that have plenty of water in them (such as cucumber, bell pepper (occasionally) or others) then your bearded dragon likely won’t need to drink tap water anyway.

If you do want to give your bearded dragon a water bowl and you’re worried about the level of chlorine, chloramine and heavy metals to help purify the water for your bearded dragon, then something like this filter jug is a great way to do it without using any chemicals. You may decide you want to drink this water yourself instead of the tap water. We do!

Is Tap Water Safe For Bearded Dragons?

If the tap water in your town is safe for you to drink then it’s pretty much safe for your bearded dragon to drink – however, it is worth remembering that human tolerance for chlorine in the water is probably a bit higher than that for bearded dragons since their bodies are so much smaller than ours.

Having said that, if you would normally drink the water from your town straight from the tap but you’re worried about chlorine content for your bearded dragon you can put the tap water into a jug or bowl and leave it in the open air overnight to allow the chlorine to ‘gas off’. This won’t remove all the chlorine from the water but it will reduce it considerably.

As we mentioned above, the Brita Filter jug is another great way to filter out chlorine, chloramines and other potential contaminants. In many cases, you’ll use the jug yourselves and just let the bearded dragons bowl be filled with the same stuff.

How To Make Tap Water Safe for Bearded Dragons

In most cases, the tap water from your town is already safe for bearded dragons. But it does contain some chemicals that you might not want, such as chlorine, chloramines, calcium (though that’s probably not a bad thing for beardies!) as well as other heavy metals.

Some places recommend water treatment chemicals such as ReptiSafe Water Conditioner from Zoo Med. Our opinion is that we’d rather not add chemicals to remove chemicals and we use the Brita water filter system instead. But there may be some really good reasons to use the ReptiSafe with other types of reptile and if you have an opinion please leave us a comment below.

Do Bearded Dragons Need Special Water?

In general, no, bearded dragons don’t need special water. If the water quality in your town is satisfactory for you to drink it then it’s perfectly satisfactory for your bearded dragon too. Some places will have higher chlorine usage than others, and that may produce a stronger smell in the water which you might not like. Once again, a Brita filter or something similar is going to be the quickest best way forward. Or, as we mentioned earlier in the post, you can simply leave a jug of water overnight on the side in the kitchen to allow a lot of that chlorine to ‘off-gas’ and dissipate. Of course that won’t remove any heavy metals or other minerals from the water – but depending on what they are you’re beardie isn’t likely to come to harm from them.

Summary

Bearded dragons can quite happily drink the very same water you do. If you drink unfiltered tap water than it’s just as suitable for your bearded dragon. If you drink filtered water, then maybe consider giving the same to your bearded dragon. And finally, if you feel the need to drink bottled water at home, then perhaps your water quality isn’t that great and a filter jug might be needed for your bearded dragon.

Bearded dragons will almost never, in a first world country, need to be given bottled water. If your tap water isn’t up to scratch you can still use a reuseable filter such as the Brita Jug which will cost considerably less than bottled water, but still remove all the harmful stuff.

You could also boil the water in a kettle and then let the water sit in an open jug on the side to cool and off-gas. Despite what you may have heard to the contrary, re-boiling water is also generally quite safe^[1].

We hope this post has helped to allay any fears you might have had about your bearded dragon drinking tap water safely. If you have enjoyed it, please share this post with your friends using the buttons below. If you have any comments or questions, please leave us a comment using the form below.

References:

1: Helmenstine A. (2021). Is It Safe to Reboil Water? Science Notes – Learn Science, Do Science. Fetched from https://sciencenotes.org/is-it-safe-to-reboil-water/ on 1st March 2022.

Featured Image by Satish M I from Pixabay