The Defective Glass Water Bottle

My poor girls spent the whole night with hardly any water thanks to a dodgy water bottle. It seemed to be working fine but when I woke up this morning and the water level hadn't changed I realised something wasn't right.

I took the bottle out and gave them a glass ramekin with a shallow amount of water in, then headed to the local pet store for an emergency plastic one to put through the mesh. When I got back the water in the ramekin was gone and my girls started drinking from the new bottle as soon as I put it in.

Living World Glass Water Bottle

After much reading I found that there were quite a few others leaving reviews on glass non-drip pet water bottles stating that they didn't work. I wasn't going to be defeated though as I'm uncertain about using the plastic bottles (even on the outside) after my rats caused a flood with theirs a few years ago. I spent this morning fixing my glass bottle.

Shook the bottle to fill the nozzle and it worked fine until the nozzle was empty. What should have happen next is that bubbles should have risen up through the bottle as it refilled the nozzle. Didn't happen. At first I thought it may have been a defect with the double ball bearing inside but I 'Googled' it and found that it may have been a 'vacuum' problem. Sometimes a super vacuum is created when you tighten the nozzle on to the bottle and this prevents the bubbles and stops the refill of the nozzle. With my fingers crossed I slowly loosened the nozzle until it started to drip. Then I gradually tightened it again until the dripping stopped and then tested it with my finger. No water after about 20 seconds. After a bit of fine tuning I managed to get it to work again. My bottle now has to fitted backwards but I'd rather have that than have wasted £5.

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The Degu Diaries

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