Your tapwater.

Since 1999 local U.S. water utilities have been required to send property owners a "consumer confidence report" once a year. It was enclosed in your regular utility bill. If you're a tenant you'll have to request a copy. The report also has information on all contaminants.


Many local consumer confidence reports are posted on-line: links are at the E.P.A.'s website for local drinking water information. where you click on a U.S. map to focus on your own water sources. Otherwise, contact your local water utility. If you have any trouble finding the phone number of your water utility, call the Environmental Protection Agency Safe Drinking Water Hotline at (800) 426.4791.

There's more information, though leaning towards the drinking water aspect rather than the tropical fish perspective, as you can imagine, at the E.P.A. website for their Public Drinking Water Systems Programs.

Finding out just where your drinking water comes from is important. The E.P.A. posts a site "Surf Your Watershed" full of stuff especially important to fishkeepers. All you need to do is enter your zipcode.

There's a discussion of basic water quality and treatment (though still in a drinking-water context) in the U. of Florida's Cooperative Extension Service e-pamphlet, "Home water quality and safety," among the Soil and Water topics. The City of Ottawa offers another, even more comprehensive water treatment site.

And Clearwater, a Barnegat NJ well-drilling company, gives good straight stuff about methods of water conditioning and a wide range of sources of contamination, with a glossary of terms.

Another approach is simply to locate your city or local webpage, perhaps through www.google.com, select the Water Department, and then follow a link to the "Consumer Confidence Report." It may be hidden as a button or html link marked only "CCR."

And don't neglect the Dihydrogen monoxide website. If you have reservations about what's in your water, here's an eyeopener about unseen health hazards! You can't be too careful!