cleaning grapevine

i found this really cool grapevine stick at a local discount petstore...its cool but i need help cleaning it. i know about the boiling water thing, but heres what i did. i boiled about 1gallon of water, and pured it in the bathtub along with the grapevine, since its the only thing to fit it. well thats all i boiled. i filled the rest with the hottest water my faucet could give, which is pretty darn hot. is this ok?

can you not fold it into the oven and bake it? i got mites, so i may overdo it now. i usualy soak in the hottest water possible for at least a few hours, then soak it in hot hot bleach water. 10% bleach. then soak again for a few hours in the hottest water, and then rinse it very well. if i can fit it into my oven and it is oven safe i put it in there on 250. i put a lot of stuff in my dishwasher, plastic and ceramic things. i run it twice once with bleach and then once to rinse well. if it is painted it may come off over time so make sure it is dishwasher safe.. use a small test peice or somtthing.. like i said i may over do it a bit, but i will not risk mites again. i like dishwasher things, cause i can do those every week.

ah very good question indeed!! Boiling water generally takes longer than the amount of time described above to disinfect. So here is what I recommend...

1) the Baking option.... There are other posts about this and I'm not 100% on the details so you'll have to search the forums for that one... the next two are what I do....

2) Bleach action. Use a very tame bleach mix ... 10:1 water to bleach ratio I believe (I use the hottest tap water I can get) and soak for ten minutes... then afterwards RINSE RINSE RINSE RINSE and soak in clean water and RINSE RINSE RINSE

3) the BEST option is to buy some Virosan... there are links around here to get it cheap (30$ a gallon... keep in mind this is a concentrate so a gallon will last you probably into 2006) This is what I do. Soak the Grapevine in virosan and water... then you can use the virosan to clean anything else your little heart desires. Doesn't hurt snake , doesn't require as much rinsing as bleach, doesn't smell bad, and overall... I love it! :)

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the Baking option.... There are other posts about this and I'm not 100% on the details so you'll have to search the forums for that one... the next two are what I do....

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Water boils around 225 or so depending on elevation, so 250 is a good oven temp. You need to heat the whole item to the core so leave it in there for a good half hour to forty five minutes.

Thanks Steelsack - great avatar by the way :)

thx guys, im doing the bleach thing.

you can also try white vinagar