Best way to Clean a tank?

1) I take everything out of the tank and discard the paper towels I use as substrate.

2) Wipe down all the cords from the probes and T-Stat with a paper towel with bleach/water solution.

3) I fill the bathtub 1/4 of the way with bleach/water solution and soak the hides and the red slate rock in my BP's tank for an hour or so.

4) After I start soaking the hides and rocks, I turn the oven on to 200* and bake the piece of wood for about 30 minutes to an hour.

5) While all that is going on, I take a spray bottle with more bleach/water solution and spray the inside and outside of the tank and wipe it down. I sit it outside to let it dry and to get any fumes out, even though the solution is so diluted, you can barely smell the bleach. I do the same to the lid for the tank.

6) When that is done, I get the wood out of the oven and put the hides and rocks in there and bake them for 30 minutes.

7) Grab the tank, line it with paper towels, spray it and the lid with Provent-A-Mite and let it sit to air out again.

8) After I am satisfied that it is properly aired out, I put the tank back, put all the stuff back, let my snake crawl through a warm, wet towel and then I put him back.



I know it's a bit of overkill and it takes a few hours, but it makes me feel like things are nice and clean. Ever since my BP got mites a few months back, I've been a lot more cautious when I clean his tank.

Sounds good!! Overkill is the best way to do it... only ppl who have dealt with mites *cringe* would know this. lol

I just cleaned my tank.

1. Took everything out and put the water dish, rock, and hide in HOT water with soap for about 30 mins. Scrubed & rinsed, then dry.

2. Threw all the paper towel substrate away
3. Sprayed tank with bleach solution, wipe it down and probe cord.
4. Let it air out then spray with mite solution and wipe it down
5. Let it air then put paper towel down
6. Cleaned all logs and branches in diluted bleach water for about 30 mins. ( guess who decided to crap in his cylinder wood hide? :O While spraying it I discovered a big turd that was 100% fur!!! Bleh)

7. Letting them now dry.
8. replace everything
9. Spray all with a diff mite solution
10. Let air out
11. Replace my bp :]] :snake:

Whoo! Finally done!! :] :banana:

What is the mix for the bleach solution, 50/50 sounds a bit much?

I just put about a half a cup- cup of bleach in the water and mix it. I think 50/50 would be way too strong personally. You don't need too much bleach in the water. Just so you can barely smell it. Which is a minute amount.

All these are good, I have used them all from the chlorahexadine, to diluted 50/50 chlorine water solutions, to dish detergent. using wood in my tanks is a pain, but something i found that worked really well was too scrub everything and then freeze it. I scrub everything down using either one of these things rinsing of course very well and drying very well, then with the wood stuffs which i no longer use i would freeze it, then let it thaw and all of it would be sanitized and clean smelling too. baking soda i also used on my fake plants that had a funky smell.