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... ========================= 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 | ========================= [Posted in FML issue 2310]