Boil Water Advisory - Will this affect amphibs?

[Elena]

My city just got a boil notice advisory, as we apparently got a sample back showing that there is E.coli. in our water system. The water Bureau advised that the population off over 105,000 in this area are to boil any water that would come in contact with your mouth. Drinking water, dish water, water for tooth brushing, etc. It said that water for pets was optional.

I am wondering if the bacteria found could possibly affect reptiles and amphibians, which I have. I changed the water to a few juvie axolotls (separate containers) the day that the notice came out (we hadn't yet checked our mail box), and they were dead a few hours later. Extremely concerning, and that's when I knew something was wrong with the water. I checked the bureau site and this notice was up. Here is the warning that we received:

"The bacteria found were total coliform and E.coli. These bacteria are found in the
human digestive system and very few strains cause serious disease and illness.

Although the specific strain of E. coli is not known, generally the strains that are
associated with serious illness are rarely found in water supplies. The samples were
sent to a specialized lab to attempt to identify the specific type of bacteria. Results are
not expected back until Tuesday."

So far we are boiling all of our water, and I am only using water that was sitting out days before the bacteria was found. They do checks four times a week, so the water is clean of the bacteria, as I poured it before a previous check. I know that is safe, at least.

If anyone can tell me if these bacteria would cause problems with amphibians, it would be great to know. I am also concerned that there may be other bacteria not harmful to humans that was in this most recent batch of water that could possibly harm my animals. For the next few days I will be sticking to boiling water and setting it out to cool for all my animals to be safe, considering the juvie axolotl incident, but I definitely want to know!

[Elliott]

Yes, the hot water will kill them.

[Kaysie]

E. Coli are nasty little bugs. If you infected your herps, it may not be so dangerous for them, but you run the risk of reinfecting yourself over and over with every water change.

[Elena]

I'm not an idiot, Elliott. The water is cooled before I use it for anything. I was asking about what is in the water. I'm considering just using bottled gallons until this is over, but I have to find a store that isn't out of them already!

[Cassie]

As long as you thoroughly boil the water to kill the organisms, I think you'll be fine. Double-boiling sometimes is necessary.

If you're interested in getting water from other places, you can always take some safe containers that you can fill with water and go to areas where they have drinking water fill-up stations for RVs and things like that, and don't have an advisory out on them. I had a friend who did that when their water was contaminated. The one thing to be concerned about is what kind of additives are in the water there, but if you have a filtration pitcher that you can run it through, it can help.

[SwissAxie]

Hi,

Does anyone know what the max of contamination by E.coli may be before axolotls show infection ?

A friend of mine has 1n / 100ml in her drinking water since June and her axies are dying off one after another. While she's already treating them with an antibiotic and waiting for the sweep analysis we're desperately searching and eliminating causes for their disease.

Barbara