To be perfectly honest, I don't KNOW the effect that Distilled H2O will
have on ferrets (or any other animal that consumes it).  I do know that for
aquatic animals (snails, mussels, fish, etc.) it will kill them.  They rely
on the 'impurities' in the water to help them maintain the appropriate
osmotic balance with their surroundings.  Without the 'impurities' they
will continue to take in water to try to balance themselves (a futile
battle) with their surroundings and and die fairly rapidly.  Aside from
being more expensive that bottled/spring water, I say either get a Britta
or a PuR water filter (we have a PuR and it's great; easier than a Britta).
 
Re: the algae destroyer sold to battle algae in aquaria.  I don't have any
of it (I refuse to add unneccessary chemicals to my tanks), but I'm pretty
sure it's got stuff in it that *I* wouldn't want to ingest.  The dosages on
stuff like that are ususally 1 tsp/10 gal, so they're fairly concentrated
and consequently hard to accurately measure down to the 'water bottle'
volume.  Your best be would be to cover the bottle with a layer or two of
tin foil.  No light=no photosynthesis=no algae.
 
                                        -Erin...
 
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   Mr. Erin M. Ennis    |       Any sufficiently convoluted argument can
 eennis(at)zoo,uvm,edu  |       be made to appear to be science as the
 Water Resources Major, |       layman equates incomprehensibility with
     Biology Minor      |       science.                -Unknown
    Uni. of Vermont     |
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[Posted in FML issue 2310]